


Flood III

by Janet_Coleman_Sides



Series: Floodverse [5]
Category: Kagaku Ninja Tai Gatchaman | Science Ninja Team Gatchaman
Genre: Alcohol, Childhood, Clairvoyance, Coma, Emotional Hurt/Comfort, Grief/Mourning, M/M, Magic Realism, Memories, Moving On, Precognition
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2013-01-18
Updated: 2013-01-17
Packaged: 2017-11-25 22:17:43
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 25
Words: 53,059
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/643532
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Janet_Coleman_Sides/pseuds/Janet_Coleman_Sides
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Joe is dead and Ken tries to move on. Also, Joe is secretly alive and has plenty of time to think while being turned into a cyborg.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Chapter 1

"Hey Jim. A guy was in here last night looking for you."

Jim shrugs. "Mike, I bet." He's not interested. His gaze is down on the drink he's making, a Sea Breeze (no grapefruit). 

"No... not Mike."

Something about Tony's usually cheerful voice makes Jim look up at him. He lifts his eyebrows, Go on...

"He didn't say his name. But... it was, you know... That Guy."

Jim feels something lurch. He doesn't know if it's his stomach or his heart. The way Tony says it, there's no confusion as to just who That Guy might mean. 

He shrugs and looks down. "Did you tell him I'd be here tonight?" His hand is numb as it reaches for the lime wedges. (Tony always wants two, and always makes the same joke about how he'll never get 'the scurvy'.)

"Yeah. I told him your schedule. Hope that was OK and all."

Jim nods abstractedly, and gives Tony his drink. 

"Did he... say anything else?"

"Well -- not to me, but... right after he came up and asked about you, somebody else tried hitting on him and The Guy just said, 'Don't bother.' Cut him dead, like. Cold."

Jim blinks. Tony is a good mimic. Could he have really sounded like that...?

"Then he left."

Nods again, then rinses his hands off, wiping them on the bar towel. 

"How long has it been since you seen him last?" asks Tony, squeezing both lime wedges and dropping them in, then stirring it around with the swizzle stick.

"More than a year." He should know, he was there that night taking Jim's shift.

"Cold," says Tony again, and takes a deep swallow of his ruby-red drink.

_I wonder what happened._

Because Ken was _gone_ after that last evening here; after his lost friend came in and found him. The friend with two girls, who nonetheless looked at Jim as if to say,

_HE'S MINE!_

After the guy and the girls all left, Jim tried to tell him. But Ken ran out before he could. And he's never been back... Until last night. 

_Looking for me._

His heart is pounding. He tries to keep it out of his face; Tony sympathetically looks away and offers no more comments for now. 

Jim is tense all night -- ready at any moment to look up into blue eyes, though his ear is alert at all times for the sound of the door. But by closing time -- 'The Guy' has still not appeared. 

_I should have known._

He activates the alarm and goes out the back door, locking up. He turns toward his car -- and freezes when he hears a voice out of the dark to his right.

"Jim."

He turns slowly to see a tall, dark figure step into the dim light.

"I didn't want to go in there again," says Ken. "I thought I'd wait for you out here."

_Was his voice always like that?_

It's been too long since he heard it but... Jim thinks not. 

"Do you... still need a ride?" says Jim after a pause. He doesn't know what else to say. 

Ken does not smile, but tilts his head in recognition of the reference. "Yes please." 

Jim unlocks his car doors and they get in. Heart pounding, Jim starts the engine. "Am I taking you home?"

A pause.

"I can't go home."

So flat, so crushed, his voice makes Jim wince. 

"Ken. What _happened?_ "

Ken looks up. His blue eyes, exactly as beautiful as that last, sweet moment Jim had looked into them, are nonetheless _diminished_ somehow, in light. Jim knows the answer even before Ken opens his mouth to say it.

"He's dead."


	2. Chapter 2

_I'm..._

_I'm dead._

Yes. Dead.

So.

This is what it's like. 

Joe hadn't expected it to be... _boring_...

There is pain, oh yes, _and_ torment, exactly the sort of thing he'd been expecting as he lay gasping in the grass, bleeding out like a slaughtered animal. 

Darkness, of course, for a good long time, then --

 _ **Pain**_ , hot needle biting, red throbbing. _**Cold**_ that burns, heat that crystallizes into agonizing spasms. Relentless sounds hammering his ears. So many bullets in his body, and they've all come with him to hell... The bullets, and the thing in his head too, yes, the mole mech shrapnel still in his brain. (Incredible that no one shot him in the head. But they didn't need to, after all.) All his now, all he has left. The terrible heat makes the pieces of metal torment him from inside, sizzling with poison.

But... only for a while. One by one, each burning satellite of pain flares... _oh god stop please stop please_... and mercifully goes out. 

Cold. _**Dark.**_

Then...

_Floating..._

Just floating. And nothing more. The light is all around him, bathing him, and of course it's good that he doesn't hurt anymore but...

But he can't move, can't speak, and there's nothing and no one...

He can only stare out into the bland yellow light, hearing nothing, immobilized, helpless.

This... this is the real Hell... Alone, awake and aware, and unable to move... alone forever. 

Then, there is -- _**Music.**_ Celestial music. A choir of angels. 

_No fucking way._

But he couldn't _imagine_ music like this. It's not just a harp sting. It builds and soars into the vastness of space, joy everlasting. Glorious.

And a shadow moves over him, forming a shape in the light. 

"I have postponed your death," says the silhouette of God. "The heart of your enemy is still beating, Joe-the-Condor."

Joe-the-Condor...? Mad, delirious urge to laugh, which he can't do anyway. It makes him sound like Winnie-the-Pooh...

For some reason God's breath smells like cough lozenges. God has a Russian accent, too. Kind of a surprise. 

"I will make you strong again. Stronger than you were."

_Better stronger faster? The six million dollar bear?_

"And you will carry death to the heart of your enemy and My enemy -- the alien, X."

_Huh...?_

"I will make you strong. _Very_ strong. Rest, Joe-the-Condor. You will be a long time healing. Rest and listen to Mozart. I'll check on you in the morning."

The choir of angels is no less beautiful, but this new agony is more than Joe can bear. He can't even blink, but he can cry. 

_Oh God. I'm not dead!_


	3. Chapter 3

_He's dead._

Ken says nothing else after that, but he really doesn't need to, after all. Jim puts the car into gear and drives home, to the apartment complex. Ken sits silently beside him, looking out the passenger window.

 _Who_ , is obvious. 'Joe', the girls had called him.

 _How recently_ , also fairly clear. It hasn't been very long at all. He hasn't cried yet. That's part of what's wrong with his voice, Jim thinks as he drives. 

And _whose fault..._ well, that much is obvious too, whatever the rights of it. Ken is bowed under the weight.

Jim knows how that is.

He asks no more questions. 

Jim unlocks the door to his building and lets Ken in. In the normal way of things Jim might have chattered about this or that, pointed out the door of the apartment where the crazy old ladies live, but this is not the normal way of things... Even when he unlocks his own door Jim does not, as he normally would, apologize for the state of the place, even though he could have had no way of knowing that anyone was coming to see it, and it's not very presentable. Since dad died, Jim has kept things from being filthy, but the clutter always catches up with him.

Silently he lets Ken into his home, and silently Ken enters it. He does not even look around. Jim can remember how alertly Ken would size up the bar whenever he entered it. Now, his body language clearly suggests, it does not matter anymore what happens to him or where he goes. Palace or prison, oasis or ambush... it makes no difference anymore.

_He's dead._

"Are you -- " Jim checks himself before he can say 'hungry', "have you eaten recently?"

Vague shrug. Slow shake of the dark shaggy head. 

"Would you eat, if I made you something?"

A pause this time, then Ken shakes his head No again. He is swaying with exhaustion.

"Maybe you should lie down," Jim tries. "The bedroom's -- "

Ken looks up at him, sharply now. Even diminished, even exhausted, the look in his eyes is a clear warning.

 _Don't bother_ , Tony had said he said. 

"Ken. Give me a little credit," Jim says, a little stiffly now, trying not to sound hurt. "If you thought I would act like that, you wouldn't have come to me."

Ken looks down, nods. It seems as much of an _I'm-sorry_ as he is capable of producing. 

"Come on," Jim says gently. "You need to sleep."

Ken sits down on the edge of Jim's bed, blinking, looking lost.

How strange he looks here, how exotic, sitting on Jim's frayed, favorite comforter. He just sits there... beautiful... Suffering... a ghost of himself. 

Without a word Jim kneels down and takes Ken's shoes off. 

He ought to take those jeans off too, he'd be more comfortable, but Jim has better sense than to push it. 

Ken tips over when gently pushed, curling up tight in the center of the bed, hugging his arms. He ought to get under the covers too... but at least he's lying down. 

Jim hesitates... then turns to leave the room. Ken can have his bed. There's no way a person with any decency would expect Ken to want company --

Behind him he hears Ken inhale sharply and sit up. Jim turns back to look.

"Please?"

Ken's voice sounds raw underneath.

Jim blinks.

"What...?"

"Stay," Ken whispers.

His eyes are enormous, and awful with pain. Jim shivers... then comes back into the room.

He kicks off his own shoes, then climbs onto the bed. Heart pounding -- sure he will somehow do wrong -- he puts his arms around Ken, lying down behind him. Ken remains curled up tightly, hard muscles locked against each other.

He is trembling. No, shaking now. 

_He has not cried. He has not had the luxury..._

"He's dead," says Ken. He sounds like a child.

"Your friend," says Jim. It really isn't a question. He hesitates a moment. Then he says the name. "Joe...?"

Ken jerks as though he's been hit. "Yes --"

And then, almost without transition, Ken is crying, a convulsive torrent of tears and guilt. "My fault, my fault..." It goes on and on. Wracked with sobs Ken moans in his arms... a terrible sound, especially when he gasps for breath in between, like he's drowning, his whole body trembling, gathering what little strength it has left to fling against the rocks.   
-  
Jim expected pain, but the intensity and duration of Ken's weeping begin to actually frighten him. He comprehends grief, God knows -- but -- has it been the years since Andy died that blunted his memory of it? Ken's despair is... like the loss of an entire world. 

Jim holds him, long after his arm has gone numb, holds him knowing that there is nothing he can do, nothing.

But Ken asked him to stay.

***

Ken lies quietly now in exhaustion, his eyes and nose and throat raw, muscles aching from the tension. He held the tears in too long, too many days, and letting them out has given no relief after all.

How many days ago was the 'funeral'? 

_Five. But who cares?_

He can remember how many days, but he can't remember a thing about the ceremony, not a word anyone said.

The world is submerged and he takes shallow breaths, as though his ribs are broken. As though the pressure of the air has crushed them in.

He closes his aching eyes, and it seems only a moment before he is dreaming. 

_Cold._ He is naked, in a cell of black glass, being leered at by men in white coats. _Turn the light on_ , they say. _A looker like you._ The pale woman in Jun's clothes is standing rigidly in the corner, staring. 

_No._ He curls up tight, trying not to let them see him naked. _Lock the door..._

At least... he is alone in this prison. (Yes, the woman is here, but she can leave at any time.) At least... no one else has to _suffer_ here...

Immediately following upon this thought, there is a clink of chain links behind him.

_Oh... no..._

Ken lifts his head, incredulous, turning toward the sound. _Joe -- !?_

His heart surges with hope and terror both, because _**Joe is dead.**_

The woman is shaking her head, _No._

No -- it's not Joe on the other end of the chain. 

It's -- someone else -- naked -- 

Ken feels a surge of disgust -- but it's not one of the white-coat men, it's someone else. 

_Who...?_

He studies the stranger, frowning in confusion. 

Curled up, sleeping (or unconscious) -- a man with short curly dark hair, hints of early grey. He might be about thirty. Thick brows, stubby dark lashes... snub nose, thin lips. His body is lean, though not particularly muscular; he's maybe five-ten or so. 

_Who is...?_

Ken looks up to ask the dead woman, but she is gone. When he looks back at the man, his eyes are open, looking into Ken's. 

Features so ordinary as to be practically anonymous are transformed by the open eyes, dark as liquid velvet. Kind, dark puppy eyes, and a crooked smile turning up one corner of his mouth. 

_Jim._

From there Ken passes into exhausted sleep which shows him no dreams.

***

At first Ken twitches in dreams, but then abruptly relaxes and does not move except for deep slow breathing, a little stuffy from crying. 

Jim continues to hold him for some little while, his ear pressed against Ken's back, listening to his heartbeat. Then he wonders: Maybe this is... an illicit intimacy. _He's asleep now._

Jim gets up, pulls a spare blanket over the tightly curled form, and goes out to the kitchen. Ken does not stir. He needs sleep. And Jim needs food. 

Ken sleeps for nearly fifteen hours. It's late in the afternoon when he finally moves, sitting up stiffly and looking around him with dull eyes. 

Jim has been sitting in a chair for the last few hours, reading yesterday's newspaper. The chair was shoved in here to make room elsewhere in the apartment, and after spending time in it Jim remembers why -- it's scratchy. But Ken had asked him to stay. Jim already called Tony this morning and got tonight's shift covered, evading Tony's obvious desire to know why.

He looks up immediately at signs of life from Ken. Ken turns his head, slowly focuses on Jim's face. He seems hung over, though Jim is sure he wasn't drunk. 

"Hey," he says softly. Before Ken can ask, "Bathroom is the first door on the left."

Ken staggers to his feet, then shuffles out of the room. Sounds of the bathroom door, then the toilet, then the shower. _He's all right then_... in the strictest and most immediate sense, that is. He's alive. He's awake. And he's on his feet. 

Jim gets up, dropping the newspaper, and stretches. Maybe Ken is hungry enough to eat something. 

He goes out to the kitchen to start coffee. While he's doing this he hears the shower stop. Then the bathroom door opens. Jim expects at any moment for Ken to come down the hall into the kitchen, but he doesn't. 

After a minute or so Jim drifts cautiously down the hall, calling out, "Um... If... you need a change of clothes... you can borrow whatever fits you." Ken's legs are too long, but he could at least have a clean shirt. 

He can hear Ken moving around in the bedroom. But it doesn't sound like rummaging or getting-dressed noises. Regular breathing -- has he gone back to sleep?? No, it's too loud for that.

Jim cautiously edges close enough to peek in, ready to lurch back and apologize wildly in the event that Ken really was getting dressed. 

But... No.

Jim stares into his bedroom at Ken, mouth open in complete amazement.

Is he -- _dancing?_

No... 

Not yoga either. More like... martial arts. Just, all by himself. 

Jim hasn't seen a _kata_ before. He watches in amazement as the same man who just ten minutes ago was shuffling painfully after lying in one position for the better part of a day, now moves with such grace and strength. 

Ken has put his jeans back on, but is shirtless and barefoot on the threadbare rug. Although his eyes are open, they are vague; his true attention muted, submerged. His body is used to doing this when he gets up, and that's why he's doing it now. 

His hair is damp, casting diamond droplets down his back. Jim can see them rolling over smooth muscles as they bunch and flex. 

Jim's eyes widen as he makes out the white lines of long scars, but Ken turns again and they are lost to his view. 

He is frozen there, watching. Surely Ken can see him here in the doorway. But if so he gives no sign, breathing deeply, the pattern of smoothly flowing moves repeating at least twice while Jim watches. 

He is a lithe and perfect balance of beauty and strength. 

What must he have been like before the heart was torn out of him...

What must he have been like, for... Joe?

Jim remembers the handsome, arrogant face of the young man standing in the doorway, gaping in shock at Ken, then glaring death into Jim's eyes.

Suddenly he realizes Ken has stopped moving, standing still in the center of the pattern of the rug, looking at him. He looks awake, now. 

Ken says, "How did you know his name?"

His voice is so awful that Jim literally can't tell at first what Ken said. His voice was worn raw with the force of his grief before he slept, and it sounds worse now.

His eyes... ah, his beautiful eyes are painful to look into. 

"I didn't tell it to you," Ken goes on, and only then does Jim figure out what Ken's saying.

"I heard one of the girls say it." 

_'Joe, will you come **on** '... as they dragged him out of the bar._

"Ah." Ken nods once. 

There is a pause.

"You need to eat," Jim says, softly. "I'll make you something."

Once again he has avoided framing it as a question, and this time there's some success. Ken shrugs a little, nodding vaguely. 

Good. "Are you, um, vegetarian or anything...?" 

Ken shakes his head No.

"OK. I'll make breakfast. Uh, I don't know if you heard me before... but you can borrow a shirt and stuff, I just did laundry, there's plenty of stuff in there..." gesturing at the dresser. 

Ken turns his head to look where Jim is pointing, but Jim's not sure he's getting the idea. He looks... lost.

Jim can remember feeling too numb to make even the most basic decisions. He turns toward the dresser and pulls a T-shirt out of a drawer (the topmost one; it turns out to be black), also a pair of socks. He tosses them to Ken, who catches them automatically, blinking.

"Put those on, OK," says Jim, "Then come to the kitchen."

Nod. 

Jim goes out of the room, wondering if Ken will remains standing there, or perhaps climb back into the bed. Both seem possible. 

But no; after a couple of minutes, Jim looks up from the panful of hash browns he's tending to see Ken, standing in the kitchen doorway, silent as a ghost.

It startles Jim. _How did he do that?_ The floorboards in the hall always creak so loudly... but he was lost in his thoughts, after all, and the cooking sounds...

The shirt's a little bit tight on him, which is hardly a failing on a physique like Ken's... but... Black is _not_ Ken's color. 

Jim drags his eyes and attention back to the food. He knows he's making more than Ken is likely to be able or willing to eat, but it makes him feel a little better to be busy, doing something. Anything. 

Ken has not moved from the doorway. Jim points at the kitchen table, and his own customary seat. "Sit down, OK," the 'OK' at the end is only to soften the delivery of what is more or less an order.

Ken nods and goes where he's told. Sitting down at the kitchen table, he picks up a white paper napkin and starts idly folding it. 

_What is he making?_ Jim catches a glimpse as he brings a steaming plate and mug to set down before him. _A bird._

"What kind is that?"

"Just a crane," Ken says, absently. He sets it aside, on top of the radio. 

Somewhat to Jim's surprise, but much to his relief, Ken eats everything he's given. Toast, eggs, potatoes, bacon all disappear. From the blank look on his face, he might not be really tasting it, but... at least he's getting it down. 

"Thank you," Ken says, when Jim takes the plates back to the sink. He looks a little better; a hint of color in his face. He needed that food. 

"De nada," says Jim. 

***

Joe gets pretty fucking sick of Mozart by the time the old man comes back. 

It's not like he has to hear the same thing over and over all night long, at least, but it's just not his _style_ \-- especially not the operas, though it's nicer to hear Italian than he might have expected. Why couldn't he have had a little rock, or blues, or... _anything but airy-fairy classical_... But with nothing else he can do, he listens. The music fills the emptiness -- long hours of immobility lulled by variations, by language, by harmony. 

After a long long time, the music stops again, and the silhouette leans over him once more.

"Sorry to interrupt such music," says the old man, and the cough-drop smell is more pronounced; he has one in his mouth now, Joe can hear it clicking against his teeth. "But I am ready to begin now."

_Begin?_

"You will have to sleep for some time. Few weeks only first time. Brain first. Will lose all remaining sensory input, but you will be sleeping. Not to worry."

It's like one of those horrible dreams where something is on your chest and you can't move and you can't breathe. 

_Lose all -- ? What are you doing? Who the fuck are you?_

_Stop, what are you doing? Stop, who the fuck -- ?_

"Sweet dreams," says the old man.

And everything goes away into blackness, silence, void.

Everything.

Except...

Joe.

...

_Wait!_

...

_**Wait!** _

_STOP! OH GOD, YOU SON OF A BITCH --_

_I'M NOT SLEEPING!!!_

Silent, frenzied, impotent howl that goes nowhere, ricocheting in Joe's mind.

He cannot feel pain; he cannot feel anything. What little he had before suddenly seems a wealth of stimuli -- light, music, the scent of menthol --

Now -- nothing. 

Nothingness. 

Absolute zero.

Except his mind -- wide awake in the dark.

 _Few weeks only first time,_ the old man said.

_oh..._

_god..._

_He lied. I must be dead after all. Because this... has got to be hell._


	4. Chapter 4

_Like a ghost._

He comes to learn that Ken always walks like that: silent as a ghost. In fact, he usually can't tell where Ken is when they're not in the same room. Ken just doesn't make the sort of _here I am_ noises -- clearing the throat, shuffling the newspaper, the _tink_ of a spoon in the coffee cup -- that Jim is used to hearing. 

He has to go back to work the night after Ken's arrival. Feeling sure that Ken will slip away while he is gone, he puts the spare key -- dad's old key -- down on the kitchen table. He wants to leave a note with it -- but he can't quite do it. What would he write? _If you go, come back_ \- ? or, _Just in case_ \- ? It would be easier just to hand it to him, but Ken is sleeping again, curled up in the center of a knot in the blankets. 

_Maybe he won't even wake._

_Maybe... he'll still be here when I get back._

Maybe.

***

"Something's up with you," says Tony. "Isn't there?" He's leaning forward, both elbows on the bar -- like he's bracing himself. 

Jim keeps his eyes on the task of restocking the fridge. "Whaddyou mean...?"

"C'mon, Jim. You never trade shifts without some big reason. So what's the big reason? What were you doing last night?"

"Nothing." That is the truth -- at least, in the sense Tony means it. 

"Then why take off?"

"Maybe I just felt like it for once." Jim keeps his tone light, like it's a bit of a joke. 

"Something's up with you," says Tony again. 

Jim shrugs.

"That Guy didn't come back," Tony says suddenly, "did he?"

"No, he hasn't been in here," says Jim. This is true. He hasn't been in here.

Tony's eyes sharpen. But he says nothing else.

***

When he returns at three in the morning, the total silence of the apartment brings on a painful echo of last year's lost opportunities. _Gone again while I was busy serving drinks._

The bedroom, bathroom, kitchen -- all empty. Steps dragging miserably, Jim walks past the living room, and stops in confusion to see that the TV is on, splashing the dark room with flickering light. But there's no sound.

Jim turns his head, his heart suddenly pounding. He can hardly believe it... Ken _is_ still here -- curled up in the green recliner, illuminated by the silent screen. It's so late that there's nothing still on but infomercials. 

Ken is wrapped in the comforter from the bed. He's staring straight ahead, eyes at half mast, and gives no sign of noticing Jim's presence in the doorway. 

"I'm back," says Jim. His voice comes out unexpectedly hoarse; he clears his throat. 

Ken takes a long, slow moment to come back from wherever he is. Jim's not sure he even heard him, but then Ken blinks, turns his head. 

"Whose Purple Heart?" says Ken.

"What?"

"In the kitchen. On top of the fridge. Is it yours?"

_So that's where I put it._

"Oh -- God, no," says Jim, startled into a self-deprecating laugh. "No -- not mine. It was my dad's. I mean, I guess it is mine, now, but it's not _mine_."

Ken doesn't answer, just blinks at him. Under the comforter, he's not wearing a shirt. One fold of the blanket has fallen away to bare the side of his neck, the shadow of one collarbone just visible in the TV light. 

Jim drags his eyes away from this vision, clears his throat again and says, "Are you hungry?"

After a pause, Ken nods. 

Well -- that's something, at least. "Good," Jim smiles, "me too. I'll fix something." 

Ken nods again, then turns back toward the TV to resume staring. 

Jim goes into the kitchen, starts rooting around in the fridge to see what he can make. _I'll need to go shopping soon._ He would ordinarily have done it tonight on the way home from the bar, at the 24 hour grocery; but he came straight back instead, anxious to know whether Ken had stayed -- or else disappeared, like a mirage. 

He _had_ stayed; but that didn't mean he wasn't a mirage. 

Jim straightens up with an armful of vegetables (pasta primavera should be good). As he comes up, his eye snags the edge of the slim, flat box containing the Purple Heart medal. He'd shoved it up here, with a vague idea that later he would think of a better place for it. And here it had stayed. 

_Is it yours?_ That was a strange question... even if Jim were not horrified at the thought of ending another human being's life... they don't exactly try to recruit guys like him into the military, he thinks, as the fridge door swings shut.

Flash of white in the corner of Jim's eye. He manages, barely, not to jump, but his heart is pounding. Ken is sitting at the table, folding another paper napkin crane. Jim heard nothing, of course -- had no awareness he'd even left the living room, till he caught sight of him just now.

_He really is like a ghost._

If this apartment had any ghosts, it really ought to be Jim's dad; he died here, after all. But at least this ghost is beautiful. 

Beautiful. But damaged. _Like a wounded bird._

Yes -- like a bird with a broken wing, something wild and damaged that he's brought in to try to heal... and something he has about as much ability to communicate with and understand.

Jim puts the veggies down on the counter. 

They never lived when you tried to help them -- broken-winged birds. Jim learned that as a little boy. Dad's voice harsh in his mind's ear, _What the hell are you crying about now, boy, I told you that damn bird was gonna die --_

_No! -- you said it was 'already dead' -- and it **wasn't** \-- !_

_No._ Not the past. The present. The robin is gone, buried wrapped in Jim's lucky shirt; dad is gone, buried without his Purple Heart; and Ken -- is here. 

_He's not a bird. Or a ghost. He's a man._

Oh yes. He's a man. And he sleeps in Jim's bed, beside him at night (and through most of the morning). But that's all. 

_How could I ask him for -- anything? How can I even touch him?_ Ken is so achingly near that his scent is in the pillows and blankets -- _and_ in the towels, _and_ in those clothes of Jim's that he borrows... yet he is separated from Jim by an abyss of grief. A gulf too vast to reach across: the exact center of Jim's bed. 

***

Ken sets another origami crane down on the kitchen table. 

It's just for something to do... something for his hands to do. His ears dimly register kitchen noises; his nose catches the savory scent of sauteeing onions and garlic. 

Ken stares dully at his hands as he picks up another paper napkin out of the plastic holder. The texture is at once soft and rough under his fingertips as he makes the first creases, unfolds the napkin again and turns it over.

Something to do. A futile gesture of hope. A thousand paper cranes... then, they say, the gods are supposed to grant your wish. But it's too late now for Ken's wishes... and hope's dead...

_Joe's dead..._

A numb place, there. An injury, nerve-deadened. 

The shape evolves in his hands from primordial napkin to simulated life form. It's not the best kind of paper for this -- the creases should be sharper. But this is what there is. Ken leans forward and blows a puff of air in to inflate the crane's body; then carefully pulls the wings apart and down. There: another one. 

_How many is that?_

_What does it matter?_

He starts another one. 

_Ken..._

It's like he's fallen into a trance. The rhythm of the motion -- like his _kata_ \-- a way of becoming, even for a little while, something else. Something other than himself. A sequence of motions. No higher thought.

_Ken..._

No memories. No future. No gaping pit in his heart into which all light falls and disappears.

_Ken!_

Something touches his hand. 

"Ken?"

Ken looks up, inhaling sharply, and Jim pulls back at once, blinking. 

"What?" says Ken, blankly, as though he's just been roused from deep sleep by bright light. "What is it -- ?"

"I said... Could you leave two, please? Because -- dinner's about ready."

Ken shakes his head uncomprehendingly.

"It's just, there aren't any more napkins," says Jim, sounding apologetic. "I haven't been shopping yet this week."

Napkins? Lost, frowning, Ken turns to look down at the table, the dispenser that had plenty of napkins in it when he sat down. It is now almost empty, and the table is covered with paper birds.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

>   
>  (Art by Evangelina at Bird Go!)


	5. Chapter 5

"No, don't -- don't throw them away."

Ken's arms are piled up with cranes. He stops a few steps short of the trash can, looking around at Jim in confusion. 

"Don't throw them away," Jim says again. "Please."

"They're... just..." Every word is like an anvil. _They're not of any use. They're not alive... They're nothing, a pathetic childish gesture. A waste of napkins. Of trees._ Ken struggles to respond, to finish the sentence before it evaporates back into the oppressive mist filling his head. "Paper," he says aloud.

"Well -- I know. But that's not _their_ fault."

Ken stands there looking at him. Is it a joke? He doesn't know how to respond to it. 

"I know it's stupid," says Jim, eyes down, "but I just... feel sorry for them. How about in the living room...? There's plenty of space on top of the bookcases." Ruefully, "Plenty of dust too, I'm afraid." 

Ken just nods and goes into the living room with his little flock of paper birds. In the flickering TV light they tumble out of his arms onto the dusty surfaces. It would be more fitting to throw them away, they're so pathetic, but it is easier to humor Jim somehow. 

He returns to the light and good smells of the kitchen. The smell and sight of the pasta and sauce and vegetables and bread has Ken feeling genuinely, actively _hungry._

He sits back down, and Jim brings him a plate piled almost cartoonishly high with food. Ken is about to protest when he sees Jim has served himself another one equally huge, setting it down on the table before sitting down in the chair opposite Ken. And then they dig in.

It's every bit as good as the good smells promised, and more. Ken feels as though every mouthful adds a modicum of strength to the hungry cells of his neglected body. His eyes are down, fixed upon his plate, upon its blue pattern as it is slowly revealed by the disappearing food. 

Somehow, this is all becoming a bit familiar already. This table, this chair... the radio -- does it work? he always wonders, but never does get around to trying it -- the plastic salt and pepper shakers...

Jim, across the table, companionably quiet.

Ken sets his fork down on the now empty plate. The blue pattern seems to be one of windmills. He looks up.

Jim does not eat as fast. He's gazing down distractedly as he eats, too, his free hand spread out on the table next to his plate, fingertips drumming almost silently on the formica surface of the table. 

Familiar already, the small universe of Jim's apartment. A refuge. A sanctuary.

A sanctuary, for paper birds.

_Don't throw them away._

Jim can feel him staring. Dark startled eyes look up, the laden fork hovering over the plate. 

"This is good," says Ken. It sounds lame; he tries to think of some better way to say it, but Jim's response renders that unnecessary. 

Jim blinks, looking taken aback -- like it's the very last thing he expected to hear. Then a foolish grin -- and a blush -- rise up together and spread themselves over his face. Ken is reminded suddenly of that one 'date', cut so short... Before.

 _I want to make you smile_ , Jim had said. 

"Thanks," Jim glances down at Ken's plate, "Want more?"

"I'll get it," says Ken. 

***

Jim watches him -- for a moment, anyway. He is afraid to be caught staring, though it is not likely that Ken would notice, much less object.

It's like... sleeping in Jim's bed. He's there, but not there. A ghost among the blankets -- though he is warmer than any ghost, that is true. 

Not that night, but a handful of nights later, Jim wakes up after a few hours' sleep to find Ken beside him, dreaming and murmuring, and not at all ghostlike. 

Ken, eyes closed, yet alive in a way Jim has not seen him since well over a year ago. More so, for the blanket has fallen back and the hard outline of him is easily visible through his underwear. His hips rock, his lips part...

There is still a ghost in the bed after all. A third entity. Ken murmurs his name.

_Joe._

Jim can almost see him there, in the streetlight from the window streaming in across the bed. An incubus making love to Ken, right there in front of his mind's eye. 

Even from here outside his head, even though Ken is asleep, Jim can see how lost he is in joy, living many minutes in each compressed moment of dreaming. Perhaps even now, Ken _knows_ he is dreaming, and is devouring each precious sensation with the greed of the starving at a fleeting feast.

Jim is right beside him -- beside _them_. The heat of Ken's body glows all along his side, and he aches with longing. Jim is _human_ , dammit all, and Ken is so beautiful, so desirable, and so far away he may as well be in another dimension... Closing his eyes Jim sighs, softly, through his nose. He'll have to... get up and take care of things for himself in the bathroom if he ever wants to get back to sleep. He'd prefer to do that lying down, but should Ken wake... No, unthinkable. Never mind whose apartment and whose bed, there are lines Jim dare not cross uninvited. 

Like, the line down the center of his bed. 

He must wait a few minutes. Must not interrupt, or accidentally wake him. Dream cycles only last about... hmm. How long _do_ they...? Somebody told him once but Jim can't remember... he listens to Ken's murmuring breaths, _can't be long now, I'll just wait a few more minutes,_ yes, because Jim'll never get back to sleep if he... doesn't... if he... 

And then Jim is dreaming. _The paper birds have been in here. There are paper feathers everywhere..._

***  
It is so sweet.

_oh... Joe... yes..._

_Joe, oh..._

But it cannot last. 

_Wait --_

_No... Joe!_

_Oh gods Joe -- don't leave me -- don't -- !_

The sweet dream -- the most intense one he's had, so real Ken really believed it -- fades, no matter how he tries to cling to it, to drag it back. Joe evaporates from his arms, leaving him cold and utterly alone. 

He doesn't even have to open his eyes to know it, to feel it. To _hear_ it. The one breathing beside him in sleep is not Joe; cannot be Joe, for Joe will never breathe beside him again, Joe will never breathe again. 

In the daylight, Ken thinks he's almost come to terms with that. In the night... it all closes in on Ken to crush him, the loneliness that will swallow him forever. 

_I don't want you to get over me,_ Joe told him, the night he broke the door down. 

_Don't you worry, koibito. I won't._

Loneliness. If Ken ever found it a lonely thing to be what he is -- what he _was_ , for he no longer even has a purpose anymore -- that now seems utopian, like 'good old days'. At least back then, the other half of his soul had still walked the earth. 

He opens his eyes. The green digits of the clock say it's after 4 A.M. The streetlight outside stains a window-shaped shadow of light across the bed. Jim's bed. 

It's never truly dark in here at night, but it's not the darkness of the world that waits to swallow Ken... it's the empty darkness in his heart. 

***

Heat and bruising force -- _attacking_ \-- Jim struggles feebly, mind sleep-fogged. Hard pressure against his mouth -- he can scarcely breathe --

He comes fully awake, recognizing the scent, _Ken!_

He did not recognize the touch on his mouth, because Ken has never kissed him before. If this can quite be called a kiss. Perhaps it can. It's more that than anything else.

_Is this real?_

Ken is pinning him down, panting, hard and hot and _strong,_ so incredibly strong. Rubbing against him. Biting his neck so that Jim cries out in surprise -- and pain. And desire. 

_Real._

But... Jim remembers now, Ken's dream, the name in his mouth. _'Joe.'_

_I... don't want to be a substitute for..._

But Jim is not a saint. He wants Ken too much. His hands on Ken's shoulders do not push his attacker away, but pull him closer in eager acquiescence. 

_just please... please... don't say his name..._

Ken is almost savagely rough, making Jim gasp. Desperate roughness, like breaking down a door without stopping to see if it might be unlocked. 

At first, despite his willing response, Jim feels almost like a sacrifice, that Ken does not even really know he is here... a bitter scapegoat for that other ghost. But then Ken speaks a word... quietly... right next to his ear... 

"Jim," Ken whispers. 

Jim gasps. His back arches, fingers digging into the powerful shoulders. 

Then he is not a sacrifice anymore, he is not a scapegoat -- ah God, it's glorious, a mad, vivid explosion of the senses -- and if it remains bittersweet, at least there is more than enough sweetness to sustain him. That one word... A gift. 

He's lived on so little for so long. He wasn't expecting this. Not... _this._ No one has ever touched Jim with such ferocious passion before. He's quickly drunk with it, giddy, delirious... every sense singing, every nerve excited past pain or pleasure. Elemental. Like being swept away. 

*  
*  
*

Jim wakes slowly, feeling languid, and deliciously bruised, and ravenous for breakfast. He opens his eyes to mid-morning daylight.

 

Ken is gone.

***

He is nowhere in the apartment. 

***

Jim sits desolate at the kitchen table, eyes red-rimmed, staring down at the key that Ken did not take with him when he left.

Funny. He's not as hungry as he thought he was.


	6. Chapter 6

Jim doesn't know what to do. What to do with himself... what to do at all. Gone. He's gone. Why?

But somehow he feels as though he does know why. Last night... last night...

Slowly, Jim moves down the hall, gets into the shower. Just a few minutes ago he had felt good -- bruised but good -- alive all over, in every sense, every nerve. But now all those senses are dull, the nerve endings gone numb. That was it. That was all. And Ken's gone without a word, without a note, without... _without goodbye._

Jim flinches under the hot fall of water, remembering the vision he woke up to the first time, Ken with his ghost Joe. Beautiful... and not meant for him. Not ever. 

_But later he said **my** name. He did say my name._

Yes. He did. And just remembering that moment... catching his breath, Jim feels himself blushing.... just to go there again in his mind feels like really being there. The numbness seems to melt. He almost wishes it wouldn't.

He ducks his head, rinsing shampoo out of his short hair. He was just being kind, he tells himself. _It's stupid to get excited about it now. He was just being kind before he left._

And yet... and yet... Jim might have been awakened from sound sleep to sex, his senses fogged, but... Ken's mood had not seemed exactly _kind._

Jim's hands move slowly over himself with the soap. He wants to be clean, but it's a sad thing... washing away the touch, the scent of a lover like that -- 

_He's not your lover. What are you thinking? If he'd stayed, then maybe..._

However, when he emerges, towelling off and blinking blearily at the foggy mirror, Jim finds that he has not washed off everything. His mouth falls open as he stares. His neck is bruised -- bitten-bruised -- on both sides, making him look like the amorous teenager he never really was. (Amorous, yes; successful, no.)

Jim stares at the shadow marks, then his eyes flick to watch the blush rise on his own face as he remembers receiving them. He lifts one hand, almost in wonder. Then he realizes, He can't hide these. He doesn't even own a turtleneck, and anyway wearing one would do nothing but draw attention to what's being hidden. And bruises this dark will last for a week. At least. 

...Banging. A knock on the apartment door. Jim starts, then grabs for his bathrobe, heart pounding as he hurries down the hall, thrusting his arms into sleeves and fumbling with the belt. _Ken? Ken is back? Did he only go out to get -- ?_

He wrenches the door open -- and his heart plummets in disappointment. A stout, ancient woman stands blinking owlishly up at him.

_I should have known._

"Hello, Miss Rose," Jim says, and he can't hide the sigh. 

"Good boy," barks Miss Rose in her thin, reedy voice with its fierce, thickly indeterminate accent. She always says _Good boy_ both as greeting and parting when speaking to Jim, as though he were a puppy. "My sister say, you come see her."

It's all he can do, all he can do not to slam the door shut. He can't deal with the old ladies with their weird smelling tea and their tarot cards right now... what he needs is for Ken to come back. What he needs, if not, is to be left _alone_...

"I -- I can't today. I'm really sorry -- "

She goes on as though she has not heard him. "My sister say, you bring your new friend."

"My..." _How did they...?_ But somehow they always get to know everything in the building. And -- there was last night. Their apartment is almost directly downstairs, on the same side, and while neither of the old ladies is quite sane, neither of them is deaf. "He's not here. He left." Jim looks down. His feet are still damp; the draft from the open door is chilling his toes.

The old lady shrugs, already shuffling around to return to her apartment downstairs with careful, tottering steps. "You bring him later. Good boy."

"Sure," says Jim, just because it's the easiest thing to say... feeling weariness dragging at him almost as hard as the accumulated weight of years drags on Miss Rose. He closes the door. 

_Sure, Miss Rose, I'll be sure to do that. Only problem is, he's gone... and I think he's not coming back._

The afternoon inches forward with excruciating slowness. Jim has to work tonight. Asking Tony for another favor would mean telling him everything; and besides, it's not an option tonight. It's the third Friday of the month, so Tony has visitation with his kids. 

Jim's just done laundry the other day; here's that black shirt Ken wore last week. It's clean, it shouldn't smell like him, but it does. To Jim it does, inhaling as he pulls it on over his head. He looks in the mirror. Well, great. Together with the jeans, a nice harmonious match for his black-and-blue neck. 

It's confusing. _He_ feels miserable, but his body feels so good. Languid. Like he's somehow slightly taller or something. Has it been so long? 

When he gets to the bar, he fully expects to endure derisive questions and remarks, but in fact, very few people seem to even notice. Georgie doesn't come around anymore, having had a fight with all of his remaining friends, and several of them left too, not knowing Georgie already did. Good riddance to all of them. 

There are a few new smartasses, but nothing unmanageable. Max still gets ugly when he's had too many, but to his credit this doesn't happen as often as it did when he first started coming here. 

Jim goes through the motions. He makes drinks, he makes change, he washes glasses... and he watches the door. He knows Ken won't come back in here again, he _knows_ it, and still every time the door opens he cannot keep himself from looking to make sure.

There's another moment of dashed hopes at the end of the night, when he locks up and goes out to his car, half expecting Ken to step out of the shadows again; but the shadows are empty. 

_Where did he go?_ Jim wonders as he drives, having hastily turned off the radio after a quick, unwelcome burst of 'One is the Loneliest Number'. _He said he couldn't go home._

He has no idea where that might be, anyway. He doesn't even know Ken's last name. 

Jim's own last name, being Greek, is several syllables too long to fit on the little label on his mailbox, inside the apartment building. There are ellipses trailing down the label's edge, written in his dad's shaky hand. Jim has seen no reason to change it. He pulls out some bills, an overdue notice from the library, and a postcard from the latest country his sister is trying to save (by imposing her religion on it). The postmark is from three months ago.

Except for the bills, everything is addressed to Jim's dad. He's been dead almost a whole year, but as far as anyone but Jim can tell, he seems to be alive and well. And there's no way of knowing if his sister has even gotten the news of dad's death... since she pretends Jim doesn't exist. Even if she got his message, she can't acknowledge receiving it. She'll go on sending postcards to the dead.

As for the library book, well... he'll have to go there sometime soon and explain about that. Dad had been reading it, or at least holding it, when he... well, they wouldn't have wanted that one back. Jim will have to replace it. _Heroic Ordeals of the Korean War_... Great. 

The hallways are quiet, and dim with many lightbulbs in need of changing. Jim supposes he can count himself lucky in _one_ thing -- Miss Rose is not out shuffling around (which she has been known to do, even at this hour). He can't deal with people any more tonight... if he's got to be alone, can't he be _left alone..._

The apartment is silent, of course, and dark -- he forgot to leave a light on for himself when he left. And the switch by the front door is of no help, since he's got lightbulbs of his own that need changing. Jim sighs and walks through the dark into the kitchen, feeling for the light and flipping it on.

Then he goes cold.

_There is **someone sitting at the table.**_

Pale. -- Still. -- Dead eyes staring into an abyss. 

_Oh my God!!!_

Jim jerks backward with a startled cry, slamming his shoulder into the doorframe. The vision, reacting to the sound as it had not to the light, looks up.

Huge eyes, like ice.

Blue eyes. 

_Ken._

"What the _hell!_ " Jim gasps, his heart hammering.

Ken, sitting at the kitchen table, blinking at him. 

Jim is shaking with adrenaline, and his shoulder throbs painfully. "How -- did -- you get in?" It's the first thing he can think to ask. "You didn't take the key. How did you...?"

Ken just blinks at Jim as though he's speaking in a foreign language, and Ken's waiting for the translation. Jim stares at him, his heartbeat beginning to slow toward normal again little by little. 

How can he not understand a question like that? Jim is reminded of the _ghost_ feeling. One might ask a ghost, _How did you get in?_ and the ghost would only shrug -- if it had shoulders. _Walked through the walls. How else?_

Jim's eye is caught by a shape on the table. 

A plastic bag from the supermarket, knotted at the top, with the corners of a box visible through the bag's skin.

"What's that...?"

Ken glances at it. Then... he seems to become... Jim could swear he's _embarrassed._

Ken gets up from the table and, picking up the bag -- not by the knotted handles, but from the bottom, with both hands -- steps up in front of Jim, holding it out. Jim stares at him.

 _What **is** this...?_

Ken clears his throat. 

"Um... this is nothing, but please take it."

This is as many words as Ken has said in an entire day, up until now, and more than some days. But that's not all.

"I've been here... for awhile. I should have brought something sooner..."

"What do you mean...?" Jim is entirely mystified. Ken keeps holding out the bag. Jim starts to reach for the handles.

"Wait -- "

Jim freezes.

"You're -- supposed to take it with both hands," says Ken, awkward. "Traditionally."

Jim thinks suddenly of the origami cranes, and realizes with a jolt: It's a _gift._

What a... strange feeling. ' _Traditionally_ '?

Jim reaches out with both hands this time, and takes hold of the bag with the box inside. "Thank you..." 

Through the package they're both still holding, he feels Ken jolt to stillness, and sees him staring... _At my neck._

They really are spectacular bruises. And the light in the kitchen is much brighter than in the bar. He goes red as Ken stares fixedly at them. 

"It's OK," says Jim quickly, "don't worry about it... they'll fade..."

But just thinking about how they got there in the first place brings it all rushing back again, as it has kept rushing back, all evening -- all day, despite his misery when he had believed Ken was gone. 

The heat, the struggle, the harsh beauty of desperation. The sound of his _name._

His heart is pounding again. He looks up at Ken's eyes -- which have now fixed on his. Power surges in Jim's blood, as though he's conducting a bolt of lightning. 

The bag goes flying. Ken's hard arm is suddenly around Jim's waist, and after a swift, dizzying spin of the room's axis, Jim finds himself on the kitchen table. 

This is no ghost. And there's no potential for dreamy confusion in darkness, here in the well-lit kitchen. Ken kisses him, hot and urgent -- hands already tugging his jeans open. Gasping, Jim breaks the kiss so that he can get hold of a handful of Ken's shirt and yank it up over his head. 

Ken emerges from the shirt, his dark overgrown hair momentarily obscuring his eyes. Jim's eyes flick down that chest -- the smooth golden skin, the lean, sculpted muscles, the dark hard nipples... the pale threads of scars. 

He has no more than an instant to absorb this image before Ken is moving again, dragging Jim's pants off. As Jim is in the midst of pulling off the same shirt that, hours before, had reminded him of Ken when he put it on, he gasps in shock to feel soft, thick hair brushing against his belly just before the hot, wet mouth closes around his cock. Jim cries out, writhing, muffled in the black shirt... in the artificial darkness.

There is a pause, then motion; Ken pulls the shirt the rest of the way off. Jim's face is flaming as it emerges. Ken's eyes are enormous, fixed on him, bright as the moon.

"Don't hide," he says, low. "Let me see you."

A reflex of disbelief. _**You** want to see **me?**_

But though Ken speaks softly, it is a command, not a request. In any case, it's moot. He already took the shirt and tossed it aside.

Then, he lowers his head again. 

Jim does not make any objections. Ken's mouth is not merely beautiful, but wickedly talented.

It's so good. So good. He arches his back, hands gripping the edge of the table. He wants to touch Ken's hair, but he feels paralyzed by pleasure, moaning, thrusting into his mouth. 

And Ken, who, even damaged is still the most desireable man Jim has ever seen or imagined, wants to _see_ him. Is _sucking_ him, he can hardly believe it (except for the fact that it's _happening_ ).

Ken backs off him when he gets close to climax; Jim subsides, panting, head rocking back. 

Ken leans over him. "Tell me what you want." 

Jim is drunk with it now, wild eyed, teeth gritted. He can say anything. "I want you to fuck me. Fuck me." 

The kitchen table is not really big enough for them, but it is at least sturdy. The bedroom is miles and miles away, and Jim _wants_ to do it here, he suddenly realizes: this is _his_ place now and they _can_ do it right here on the kitchen table, right in front of dad's radio (that had spent so many hours denouncing such activities in endless vile talk shows). And as it turns out, a kitchen is not a bad place at all for improvised lubricants. 

Jim feasts his eyes as Ken strips off the rest of his own clothes -- baring his feet and then shucking his jeans, revealing himself big and hard (that perfect body does not stint anywhere), and completely unselfconscious in his graceful nudity. 

When Ken pushes into him Jim hisses slightly, an indrawn breath. "Wait," panting, trying to uncurl his cramping toes and feet. Ken freezes instantly, grounded with one foot on the floor. A long pause, silent except for harsh panting. The refrigerator motor kicks on, humming.

Jim licks his lips. "Kiss me..." 

In the position they're in, leaning in to do so briefly negates the command of 'wait', hot flesh sliding in a few inches further before Ken's mouth covers Jim's, absorbing his low cry. He holds still again, except for the kiss -- slow and warm and coaxing. 

Under the heat of that kiss, tension melts away. Slowly, all the way away. Then he is gripping Ken's hips and urging him on, silently, unwilling to give up contact just to speak. But the kiss must break at last, as Ken rears up over him and begins to move.

 _oh God_. "Yes. Yes..."

Hard, fast, rhythmic stroking, building to an intensity almost as rough as last night's, but at the same time... it is all so very different from last night that except for the scent of his skin, Ken might have been a completely different man. _This_ is the lover he couldn't let himself think about this morning. 

" _Ken_..." a blur of surging and striving -- Jim is eager at every moment for _more, more,_ and there is _more_ and _more_ until Ken arches back with a harsh cry, and seeing it, Jim's mind dissolves in ecstasy. 

The next he knows, Ken is slumped over him, shuddering. 

It is a few minutes before Jim feels able to speak. At last he says, soft and shaky, "...thank you... for the gift. I'm sorry I... dropped it..." 

A sleepy chuckle ripples through Ken, and he lifts his tousled head. 

"It's OK. I told you it's nothing." 

It isn't actually _nothing_ , as it turns out. It's cake. They eat it in front of the TV. 

Then they go to bed.


	7. Chapter 7

That was the day Ken decided to live. 

The next time Miss Rose comes knocking, Jim not only recognizes the sound, he is in a much better humor when he answers the door. He smiles down at her. 

"Hello, Miss Rose. How are you today?"

"Good boy!" Her tone doesn't really fit the words. She glowers thunderously, an angry gnome. "My sister say you come _now_."

Jim glances back down the hall to Ken, who looks curiously from the kitchen, leaning back on a chair.

" _Right_ now. New friend too!" Without waiting for response or accompaniment she begins her laborious shuffle back to her apartment. 

"OK, Miss Rose," Jim calls after her retreating back and shuffling house slippers. "Just a sec."

Closing the door he turns back to Ken. "She's a neighbor. She and her 'sister' live downstairs. They want us to visit. I've known them for years and years. They're a little weird, but they're harmless..."

Ken shrugs, his long lean frame unfolding as he gets up from the chair. "All right."

"You don't have to," Jim says hastily. He wasn't expecting Ken to agree. Miss Rose's sister sometimes says weird and unpleasant things, and all of a sudden he's not sure he wants her meeting Ken -- or telling him things no one wants to hear. "They really are, um... more than a _little_ weird."

Ken shrugs. He's already up. "That's all right." 

And so, Jim locks his front door behind them, and again remembers how Ken didn't need the key. How _did_ he do that? 

"How long have you lived here?" asks Ken as they walk out to the right and then turn down the stairs. 

"Long time. Half my life, actually." Or maybe a little bit longer than half. He's thirty-two this year. He moved in here with dad when he was fifteen.

As they near the door, which Miss Rose left ajar, Jim suddenly thinks to ask, "You don't have any pet allergies, do you..."

"No," says Ken. 

"OK." Jim almost wishes he did. 

Some old ladies keep a multitude of cats. Miss Rose and Miss Lily keep birds.

A _lot_ of birds. The sounds of them within can be heard quite clearly as they draw near -- chirps, squawks, the cough of a raven.

Jim pushes the door open and leads the way in -- long habit. Knocking upsets the birds. 

"Hello," he calls out, "we're here..."

The noise in the apartment is familiar to Jim, but not to Ken. One of the grey parrots learned years ago to meow like a cat, and it does so now. This sets off several of the other birds, in particular a white cockatoo that shrieks out, "Son of a _bitch!_ " whenever it hears the sound.

The apartment is laid out exactly like Jim's, only in mirror image, as it is on the other side of the hall. The largest space (except for the kitchen) is the living room, where all the many cages are arrayed. 

When Jim enters the room, the grey parrot near the door -- the one that meows -- says, "Good boy!" and a chorus of twitters ricochets from cage to cage. 

When Ken enters the room... everything goes quiet. 

Jim looks around in confusion. 

Every bird in the room -- from the smallest finch to the big old mynah on its perch -- has gone still, silently staring at the newcomer. 

In the center of the room is Miss Lily, in her chair, with her white cat in her lap. Jim has always wondered how the lone cat feels about living in a household full of birds. It is deaf, he knows, but its blue eyes are not blind.

It, too, is staring at Ken.

Ken stops, blinking uncertainly. 

It's weird. Very weird. Jim has never heard such quiet in this room. Come to think of it he's never heard _any_ quiet in this room. The birds, even when not using their voices to shriek or sing or squabble, normally make all kinds of other sounds -- scratching and fluttering, pecking at food, swinging on suspended perches, dropping and picking up toys. 

Except for right now. 

There is a distant banging in the kitchen. Miss Rose is (from the sound of it) putting the kettle on, and swearing in her native language.

But the silence in this room goes on and on, all eyes -- and there are a great many eyes -- fixed on Ken. 

Ken clears his throat. "Um, hello," he says to Miss Lily, with a slight bow. 

She smiles. Slowly, motion and sound seems to seep back into the room; the mynah twitches its wings, there is a muted trill from a cockatiel... and little by little, normality returns. 

Miss Lily is about as different from Miss Rose as it is possible to be: black where Miss Rose is white, large where Miss Rose is small... she seems younger than Miss Rose, though it is very difficult to be sure. Miss Rose speaks with an Eastern European flavor, but Miss Lily's excellent English is almost musical. (Jim's dad used to refer to her sneeringly as 'that Jamaican woman', but Jim is sure that wherever Miss Lily came from, it's not Jamaica. The accent isn't quite right.) And Miss Lily is blind, with milky eyes that stare forever into the middle distance.

She never leaves the apartment; it is Miss Rose who shuffles out to do the shopping next door, or to the laundry in the basement, those necessary interactions with the world. In the past, Jim offered to help them with the shopping, but Miss Rose became so agitated at the thought of someone else taking care of her 'sister' that he dropped it. 

Ponderously she turns her head toward Jim.

"James. Who is your friend?"

Jim flushes at this, he always does. He has always been a 'Jim' and not a 'James' -- except to her. "Miss Lily, this is Ken. Ken, this is Miss Lily."

She nods comfortably. Ken looks around the room.

There is a silence; Jim tries to fill it. "Um... Miss Rose said you wanted us to visit."

"Oh... _is_ that what she said?" Before he can answer she tilts her head slightly and says, "What is it, young man? You'd like to ask something, I think."

"But how can you tell that?" says Ken, frowning. "I mean, you can't -- um." 

Jim knows what he was going to say: _you can't see my face_. That face looks embarrassed now. Jim knows the feeling.

"Oh, I'm not blind," says Miss Lily, "but I can understand how you'd think that."

There is another long pause. Jim doesn't know what to say. Whether he's supposed to laugh, or if he even wants to. He doesn't even want to smile, with the cat watching. 

_Don't be stupid. You're a grownup now. They're just eccentric. Creepy, but... Harmless._ Miss Lily has an uncanny way of noticing things, but she cannot see out of those eyes. 

"I beg your pardon. Yes, I do want to ask," says Ken, "if I may. Why... do you have so many birds?"

"You are very polite. They are oscines," says Miss Lily. "Birds which 'give omens by their note'. A form of augury." 

_Here we go_ , thinks Jim, trying to trade a _don't-mind-her_ look with Ken, but Ken's eyes are fixed on Miss Lily's face. 

"Messengers of the gods?" he asks. His voice is quiet; even though Jim is standing literally in between them he has to strain to hear, over the clatter of dishes from the kitchen.

"Just so," nods Miss Lily with a serene smile. 

"Which gods?" wonders Jim, for whom mention of augury conjures vague thoughts of ancient Rome. Or was it Greece? Really, he ought to know that.

"All of them."

Miss Rose comes in with the tea tray, exactly the same as every time, only this time with an extra cup and plate for Ken, so that it is slightly too heavy for her. Jim reaches for the tray, "I'll take that, Miss Rose -- "

"No! You sit!" Her voice is like that of a little dog, to add to the strange menagerie. Maybe a chihuahua. 

Miss Lily shifts the cat to her arms and stands up. Slowly, by herself, she walks the straight line across the faded rug to the table, putting her hand out to the chair as though she could really see. Of course, the furniture in the apartment has been in exactly the same positions for the last fifteen years, and perhaps longer.

It's the same weird tea as always, greenish with powdery dregs at the bottom. There's nothing funny about it in the sense of strange effects, but it does taste rather grassy. He wishes he had warned Ken about it, but to his surprise Ken picks up the cup with every sign of pleasure, and drinks. 

There are hard, thin cookies studded with sugar crystals ("Two each!" growls Miss Rose). When Jim picks one up and bites into it the sound seems enormous. The birds, though no longer quite silent, are still noticeably subdued. 

Miss Lily lifts a brimming-full cup of tea right over the unblinking cat and takes a sip, never spilling a single drop. 

Her face remains turned intently toward Ken, as though she is staring. There seems to be a slow building tension in the room, like electricity. Jim feels that at any moment she will say something disturbing, some vaguely barbed remark that ruins everything... like what she said to Andy when... 

He has to interrupt, break the tension. Looking around Jim says, "Is there anything you ladies need done around the place?"

His voice comes out a little loud. But it's not an unusual question. Sometimes there are simple things broken that he can fix, or heavy things Miss Rose shouldn't lift. Come to think of it, he has done more work on the sisters' apartment over the years than on his own. 

_His own._ It is strange, to think of it like that, when it had always seemed to be dad's place alone, that Jim was grudgingly allowed to share simply because he had been too young to go out on his own when mom left, and then later because dad had become dependent on him. Dad had had a lot of health problems, but the drinking made everything worse. 

"I believe Rose has one or two things an able body or two could manage," says Miss Lily. Her accent makes it sound like she's reciting a poem, no matter how pedestrian the subject matter. "You are very helpful, James."

"Shelves fell down," says Miss Rose in a voice as harsh as the raven's. (The raven itself says nothing, watchful as the rest of them from its perch near the window.)

In the room that is the looking-glass correspondent to Jim's bedroom, the shelves have indeed fallen down -- a massive, heavy old bookcase that reaches almost to the ceiling. It will be a job in itself just clearing the dusty piles of books cascading all over the floor so that they can right the bookcase. Jim swears under his breath when he sees how the mollies tore right out of the dry old plaster, with the support screws still in them. If Miss Rose had been in the room when this happened, she could easily have been killed. 

"You put books back in!" orders Miss Rose, but Jim shakes his head. "It's too dangerous, Miss Rose. The wall needs to be fixed or the books will just fall down again, maybe worse."

"You fix?"

Jim sighs. It's not a small job, the old wall is eroding in dry showers of powdered plaster... But it needs to be done. "Yes, ma'am. I'll fix it."

"I'll help you," says Ken.

Jim looks up, and this time manages to catch Ken's eye with a quick smile. "Thanks."

"Nan demo nai," Ken says with a shrug.

Blinking, Jim shakes his head. Non what...? No... It's not something he misheard, it's something he doesn't understand in the first place. "What...?"

Ken grins. "It means 'De nada'." 

Jim is startled into laughing out loud. It's a quick moment, but it is warm, and it is shared between them. 

"Well... it might be a little more than 'nada', here. The wall is like chalk -- this old plaster. It's the same in my place. You can't hang a picture anywhere except where somebody already had one hanging." A pause. "We'll need some stuff from the hardware store..." He is hoping Ken will go with him. 

"Stacking up the books is gonna take a while," says Ken, not catching the hint. "I can start here while you go. More efficient that way."

Jim hesitates. For him it's not necessarily about efficiency. It would be nice... if Ken went somewhere with him, even someplace as ordinary as Home Junction. _Why,_ he asks himself savagely, _were you expecting to hold hands down the nail aisle..._

"All right," he says out loud. "Do you need anything else while I'm out?"

"No," says Ken, already turning to the dusty task of piling up the books. 

Jim watches him for a moment. Then he goes out to the living room. "Miss Lily," he says firmly, with a warning tone.

"Yes, James." She is back in her customary chair, though without her cat. It must have to eat and use the litter box sometime, after all. 

Jim speaks for her ears alone, low and intense. He's not sure where Miss Rose is, but it's not Miss Rose he's concerned about overhearing him. "Please don't -- you know. _Don't_ say anything weird to him. Please?"

Her smile fades, and she regards him seriously from her blind eyes. She reaches out for his hand, and pats it. 

"You need not worry, James. I promise you, I have no bad news for him."

She is not a liar, Jim knows. The relief surprises him with its intensity. "Oh. Thank you. All right..." 

And he feels so giddy with knowing there's no bad news, he leans down and kisses her cheek. She jerks slightly in startlement, and he straightens at once, retreating -- flustered. "I'm sorry, Miss Lily. I shouldn't have done that without asking." 

But she's smiling again, patting his hand. "No apologies, James. It was a very nice surprise."

Then the white cat comes sauntering back in from the kitchen, licking its chops. The parrot meows, and the cockatoo swears. Everything is back to normal.

 

As always, they try to give him money for the materials, and as always he refuses it. It really won't be expensive anyway, but even if it were, he wouldn't let them pay. 

He is walking up to the cash register at Home Junction when he hears a familiar voice. "Hey. Jim!"

Jim turns. 

Wide-set, warm brown eyes, and a big smile. "I thought that was you," grins Tony. He has a paint bucket in each hand, and the muscles in his arms are standing out slightly with the effort. He looks at the things in Jim's cart -- drywall, plaster, sandpaper. "Let me guess. The old witches' ceiling fall down?"

"They're not _witches_." It comes out more sharply than Jim intended. Tony doesn't seem to register it though; he's in high spirits. 

"I'm repainting," he says. "The whole place, every room. Wanna help? It'll be even more fun than whitewashing a fence. Pizza and beer provided, even." 

Jim shakes his head. "Sorry... can't today. We... I promised the old ladies. Fixing a wall..." He trails off at Tony's raised eyebrows.

"We?" he says. Then his eyes dip down to Jim's neck and widen. "Oh!" The yellowing bruises are still more than visible, especially in the harsh lighting of the high-ceilinged store. Jim's face slowly goes red; so does Tony's. 

"Is it -- ?" He doesn't say 'That Guy', not here in the hardware store; he just trails off. They both know who he means.

Jim nods. 

"Oh." 

For a moment Tony looks lost, completely lost for words. It's a strange sight, and Jim feels   
awkward -- Tony is nearly always smiling or laughing, and even when he's not there's something _composed_ about his features. This glimpse is painful, like seeing a great actor completely blow a line and then stand there on stage in agonized stasis.

Then Tony takes a breath and pulls a smile on. "That's cool. I'm happy for you."

He is... and he isn't. Jim can see that. "Thanks," he says softly. "Um -- "

Tony cuts him off. "I'm -- gonna need some brushes. And some other stuff. So, um. See you at work..." and he moves off, into the busy Saturday crowd.


	8. Chapter 8

Jim drives slowly back, blinking in confusion. 

_I didn't know he liked me. I didn't know I was even his type. He's never said anything..._ He's just always been friendly. They do each other favors, covering shifts. They hang out at work. That's all.

Of course... Tony does come in to the bar on practically every day he has off, unless his kids are involved. 

Jim doesn't understand it. He remembers, though, something Tony said once on the subject -- they were talking about someone else at the time, one of the other bartenders: "You can't get any unless you're already getting some."

So is Tony only interested because Jim is already "getting some"? Is there some _aura_ people give off that signals they're having sex on a regular basis?

 _You've never even hinted that you liked me_ , he might have said, if they had been in the bar -- but no, he might not have said it even there. It is easy to form sensible words in hindsight. It is easy _now_ to think of a way he might have refused Tony's offer without stumbling like that... but then there are the bite marks on Jim's neck, the tooth marks even clearer now as the bruise keeps developing and fading. Tony would have noticed those anyway... 

 

When he gets back to the sisters' apartment, he finds Ken still sorting out the books; he nods to Jim when he enters the room, but does not pause in his task. 

Jim puts down the bags and does his best to help. There is no knowing what sort of organization might have existed before the bookcase fell down. Many of the books are very large and heavy, and most of them are old. Some of them are in foreign languages. And the dust all over everything bespeaks long years of standing untouched. 

As Ken lifts up a stack, something flutters down to slide along the floor.

It is a black and white photograph, cracked around the edges. In it a young, exotically dressed black woman gazes at the camera with dark steady eyes, her arms dramatically outstretched. On each gauntleted wrist stands a huge bird of prey, wings spread.

Ken picks it up, gazing down at it. Jim, laden with an armful of books, leans in to look at it too. 

"That's Miss Lily," he says in surprise. "I think when she was young she was part of some traveling show. Before -- you know," with a vague gesture at his own eyes. 

Ken turns the picture over to look at the back, but it is blank. After another long, curious look at the front, he sets it aside and turns back to the work.

Once the books are sorted out and the bookcase moved out of the way, they work on the wall. Like all jobs in this apartment building, it is more involved than anyone would expect. However, asking the landlord to do it would see years pass before something was done, and even if not, strange workmen would upset the sisters and their birds. No, it's better just to take care of it for them. 

It's nice, doing something useful, with Ken here at his side. They don't have to talk about anything; Jim's thoughts veer wildly from Ken's voice speaking his own native language, to Tony's eyes as he pretends to be happy for Jim. 

Several times, Ken glances at the old picture of Miss Lily where he'd set it down on a chair, and once he picks it up and looks at it again.

Once done at last, they must leave the wall to dry, plaster scabbing over to heal the breach. 

"We'll have to sand it later -- in a day or two, once it's cured," Jim tells Miss Rose, who harrumphs at things not being made right instantly -- but she pats him on the arm, in an unaccustomed gesture of gruff affection. 

"Ah... yes," says Miss Lily. "Thank you." She lowers her head slightly, strokes the white cat, who purrs and bumps her hand with an imperious nose.

Ken is beside him, with the photograph in his hand. 

"I was twenty years old when that was taken," says Miss Lily.

Ken glances up, then at Jim. Jim shrugs. _I don't know how she does that._

"That year," she says softly, as though speaking to the cat, though her voice seems to fill the room so that even the birds are listening -- "the female of that pair was killed in an accident. An outdoor show -- there were fireworks... That was when my eyes were changed. And the male... He was not there, I had not brought him, for fear of the fireworks upsetting him."

Miss Lily lifts her head and seems to look straight at Ken. 

"It is very sad. Eagles, you know, they mate for life. If an eagle's mate dies, it can find another mate; but of course, this one never saw his mate actually die." She smiles, sadly. "He could not be _sure_ his mate was not still alive."

Jim has never heard about this before. He knew she had been blinded by fireworks, but not the rest of it. Well, it isn't bad news, but it is a sad story. He glances aside to Ken.

Ken is staring at Miss Lily as though hypnotized.

 

The walk back to the apartment is like crossing the ocean floor. Ken's hair should be floating up around him, waving slowly. 

_He could not be sure..._

Jim is saying something to him, but Ken can't seem to hear it. His ears are filled with the black woman's musical voice, rising and falling like a song. 

_He could not be sure his mate was not still alive._

It is... not possible. Not possible. 

_Never saw his mate actually die..._

No -- no he didn't -- and they didn't find him -- they couldn't find his _body_ \--

Jim touches his arm, his face anxious. His mouth is moving. Ken cannot hear underwater.

_... they mate for life. If an eagle's mate dies..._

The woman had not said what became of her widowed eagle. But it was obvious. It must have gone mad.

_did not see his mate die!_

_could not be sure!_

The spike of crazy hope almost makes him sick. But there is dread in it too, of finding out for sure... of finding Joe's body himself. 

The horror of it. The real horror of death. Ninja kill, but they do not linger with the results of their work to watch it rot and decay. 

_No, they leave the dead behind. Don't they._

The calm of the recent days has shattered. Ken feels his heart grinding against itself, like tectonic plates, shifting and shuddering. Shaking him with the terrible idea.

Jim has pulled him into the apartment again, sat him down in the kitchen chair. Ken stands up abruptly, the sudden movement making the other man jump. 

"I have to go," he says. He cannot hear himself. He doesn't know if the words got out. 

It's the best he can do. Jim reaches out, but Ken brushes the hand aside and turns away. 

And then he is on a mission. A trajectory. A series of targets.

To the door. 

To the outside door.

To the airbase.

To the plane.

To Cross Karakoram.


	9. Chapter 9

Alone in his bed, Jim listens to the rain. 

Usually it's great to lie warmly dozing under the blankets while drops patter the roof. Distant grumbling of thunder would only wake him enough to know that he is safe in shelter and comfort. 

But Ken has vanished again and the bed is cold. How quickly he has become spoiled! Since before they touched one another at all, Ken has been sleeping next to him, the heat of his body luxurious. And then of course, after that... they did touch. More heat. And more luxury.

Oh God, he had to go and think about it... the kitchen... and then later, the living room... 

And of course it started here, in the bed. 

Jim curls up tightly, his erection aching against his belly. He could give himself relief, but there's only one thing he'd be thinking about while he did, and that's already the _problem_. 

_I already wanted you, now I've had you I want you even more. And you run away. It's not fair._

Jim knows so little about Ken. None of the ordinary bits of information. Of course there are things he can guess at, but that's about all he has. 

He doesn't even know Ken's surname, or what he does for a living. Ken has never asked for Jim's full name either, but that, at least, can be found around the apartment on bills and things. And of course, Ken knows what _he_ does for a living, and where he can be found.

 _Damn_ Miss Lily and her creepy stories about things dying. _Way to go!_ Though even as he grits his teeth Jim knows it could just as easily have been himself to say that 'wrong thing' this time... that Ken, though he shows signs of returning to life, is a long way from getting over --

Jim opens his eyes in the dark. 

What _did_ happen to Joe?

The faint glow from the streetlight outside outlines the drawn shades, wavering in the rain. 

How _did_ he die?

Ken has not told him. And he certainly can't ask; but somehow until now, he never even thought of it. Ken just said, _My fault_ , while he was crying. 

Again he can see Joe's face. He might not remember it so well if not for the circumstances, if Joe had not stood there and stared -- _glared_ at him like that... if Jim had not been able to see in that one change of focus and expression that -- 

_That Ken was his, and not mine, ever._

And now?

In his mind's eye, the grey eyes glare, piercing. _He's MINE._

_Even now? You're dead!_

_He's MINE._

Jim turns over the other way, trying to get comfortable enough to fall asleep.

He almost went in to the bar tonight -- not to work, but to drink -- and he would have, if it had not been for what happened with Tony today at the hardware store. Tony is his friend and he would have wanted to talk about all this. But now he can't, because Jim saw a change of focus and expression on that familiar face too. Tony won't want to hear it.

For the best, really. Jim doesn't like himself when he's drunk. He hates thinking that this is what dad felt like all the time, stewing himself in bitterness. He's afraid he'll open his mouth and sound just like him, without meaning to. 

But he hates this lonely, wide-awake sobriety too. He grabs Ken's pillow close and buries his face in it. 

_Where are you? Where did you go?_

***

Cross Karakoram.

The sun is finally coming up behind the mountains, and Ken has spent a horrible night. It's cold. The whipping wind pierces his clothes. The last time he was here, he was in birdstyle. The last time he was here... The world was ending. And Joe was dying.

_But I did not see you die. And we did not find your body!_

There are reasons, of course, why they might not find Joe's body. There had been plenty of goons all over this area during the last chaos of the Black Hole machine. Ken had practically shouted a _challenge_ to them -- before taking the rest of the team down into the base. Leaving Joe there, alone. Still alive -- but barely -- but _alive --_

_did not see you die._

The thoughts of what they might have done to his body, or even to him while he was still alive -- have been with Ken all night, shivering in the darkness. Were Joe's last moments ones of suffering and degradation? 

_please, don't have died like that. please._

Let him have gone just after Ken turned away, and known no more. 

And, too, the earth had been heaving in that chaos. It might have swallowed him up.

Even if he could bring himself to believe that -- imagining Joe's last moments brings it all back, as he kneels on the cold hard earth, stones digging into his knees. Brings back all the pathetically inadequate words.

The faces of the statues are becoming visible in the pale grey light, emerging like crippled demons as the fog burns off. Most of them were damaged and destroyed, and few remain entirely upright.

It had taken him hours to find the place again in the dark, where Joe had lain in the grass beside one of the big statues -- and the entrance to the base. He had thought somehow that the instinct of pain would lead him right there. That it might lead him to Joe -- or that maybe even Joe's spirit might somehow show him where... But he feels nothing, nothing outside of his own pain. He cannot still it or master it for even a moment, can find no silence in his soul for such a thing. He has never been able to do anything like that before... but... surely somehow Joe would find a way...

_Joe is dead, he'll never do anything again._

Ken slowly stands up, and looks around. His eyes feel dry and hollow. 

_This is where I saw you last._ Where Jinpei found his birdrang, cast aside. 

And now, just like then, it is only a landscape, empty of meaning. The ISO crews have been over every inch of the area and the base. There is nothing left here to find.

_Where did you end? Was it here? Is your spirit here?_

The sun goes on rising. He closes his eyes, shivering, trying to feel something. Anything. Any echo, any trace.

But there is nothing.

 

***  
Nothing.  
Nothing.  
Nothing.  
 _Nothing..._

_Stop this, you bastard. Stop it, wake me up and just fucking kill me!_

Ah, but who is he kidding... No one will hear him... not even God..

Huh. Who _is_ he kidding. _Especially_ not God.

_I'm gonna go insane. I'm gonna lose it! Don't bother waking me up, old Russian guy... forget a couple weeks, I'll be shithouse-rat crazy in an hour. You're wasting your time... Just pull the plug... There's gotta be one._

No sound, no sensation, no anything but the floating dark. He is not cold. He is not hot. He is not ANYTHING... _and I can't stand it...!!_

Nothing.  
Nothing.  
 _Nothing._

No pain, but no comfort. No sound, no light, no taste of the air, no sense of himself except for the hard knot of panic. If that loosens, will all that is left of him dissolve?

_I can't stand it, I can't take it -- wake me up -- kill me -- anything! ANYTHING..._

_...anything but this..._

Time, time, time... All he's got is time... black silent time running on and on and on and on... He can't stand it. He's gonna lose it. _Can't... can't..._

_Joe?_

Unable to jump, his heart can't race, he can't open his eyes. But the voice in Joe's head is **not his own** , and the terror of madness is all he has, like an animal suffocating in the dark. _Who is it!!_

_Joe? are you sleeping?_

The voice is achingly familiar, he knows it better than he knows his own. But he has not heard it in many years. 

_Joe? Come on, you have to get up. It's breakfast!_

_Leave me alone,_ he says from under the pillow. _Go away._ Madness. Where did he get a pillow?

 _I can't do that. Come on, Joe... I'm hungry..._ A hand is shaking his shoulder. Where did he get a shoulder? Or the blanket over it?

The pillow is pulled off his head, and sunlight blares into Joe's face. Light-dazzled, he focuses slowly on the figure standing next to his bed, holding the pillow: tousled brown hair, big blue eyes, red pajamas: Ken, eight and a half years old. 

_"I said leave me alone!"_ Joe snarls. He can sleep without a pillow. So what? 

Ken gets a crafty little smile on his face and, darting forward, grabs Joe's blanket off too. 

"HEY!"

"You're awake _now_. Come on already." 

Joe launches out of his bed in his blue pajamas, fists clenched, as Ken makes for the door. Their birthdays are half a year apart, so Joe is only just eight. Ken is bigger than he is, but Joe is faster. 

_I'll catch you!_

As he dashes out the bedroom door, Ken snares him in the blanket like it was a hunter's net. Unfortunately for Ken, Joe's momentum brings them both down in a punching, muffled heap, literally shaking the house. 

_"Boys!"_

Ken's mom's voice, sharp and shocked, from downstairs. At the sound of it Ken freezes, and Joe gets one more punch in before wriggling loose of the blanket and scrambling down the stairs ahead of Ken. 

Ken's mom scolds them -- mostly Ken, to Joe's satisfaction. "What have I said about the _fighting!"_

"I'm sorry," says Ken, eyes down.

 _Mama's boy._ Joe resolves to punch him again later, though he knows he'll get at least as good as he gives. But then Ken's mom is yelling at him too.

"Honestly, Joe! You've only just gotten all those stitches out. Let me see... You aren't hurt...?"

Then she's trying to pull his pajama top up to check his belly. He bats her hands away. "I'm _fine!_ " 

The scars. He doesn't want anyone to look at them. He doesn't want anyone to talk about them. They only mean one thing. 

"After all that time in the hospital, do you want to go _back_ there?" Ken's mom fusses, trying to smooth his hair. Joe bats that away too. He's starting to feel as smothered as by the blanket net. He'll _punch_ her if she touches him again -- !

Ken, who has been watching, suddenly pipes up, "We're sorry. Really, Mom. Can we have breakfast?"

 _Who's WE?_ Joe wants to say, but Ken's mom immediately lets Joe alone and turns back toward the kitchen.

Ken is looking at him.

"What!" Joe demands. 

"Just fight with _me_ , OK?" says Ken softly. 

"Right _now?_ " Joe can do that, but Ken's mom is steps away. 

Ken shakes his head, smiling. "No, dummy. I mean whenever." 

"What are you, stupid?" says Joe, but Ken has already turned away, going to the table.

After a moment, Joe follows him. Breakfast does smell good.


	10. Chapter 10

The next day, Jim goes to work. Ken has not come back. Jim doesn't even like to think the word "...yet" -- it seems presumptuous.

It's been twenty-four hours. "Only" twenty-four. 

Last time, he was only gone about half a day. But that doesn't necessarily mean anything. Jim keeps reminding himself that it's possible Ken might never come back at all. 

Thinking this makes the apartment seem dank and dreary, even though it's been a nice sunny day so far and the blinds are open.

He knows now that if Ken does choose to come back, there will be no need to worry about his getting in to the building -- or the apartment. 

_Maybe he's a cat burglar,_ Jim thinks, a joke with himself that falls silently flat. While it is easy somehow to imagine Ken in black, crawling along a ceiling to the tune of the theme from 'Mission: Impossible', Jim cannot imagine the logical conclusion of such an activity -- for Ken to be a thief. That just doesn't seem to fit. Ken doesn't act like that. Breaking and entering notwithstanding. 

Not that Jim has ever made the close acquaintance of cat burglars or jewel thieves. These are things that only exist in the movies anyway... aren't they?

This time, when he gets in the car, he has better sense than to turn the radio on. He doesn't want to know what the universe's little soundtrack joke will be today; in any case, the damn Three Dog Night song is still stuck in his head from the last time. _'Two can be as bad as one. It's the loneliest number since the number one.'_

He pulls around back of the bar, parks the car and gets out. The bright afternoon sun illuminates a squalid area of asphalt and cigarette butts; opening the back door lets a beery, smoky gust of stale air out into his face. 

He's been working here for almost four years. No... no, that's wrong. _Five_ years. 

_That long? Really?_

Really. And it is exactly the same now as it was when he first started... except for how he looks at it. And, apparently, how it smells. 

It's Sunday afternoon; hardly anyone is here. Mongke -- if that's still his name this week -- opened the place at noon, and he shrugs glumly as Jim comes back behind the bar to relieve him. "It's been really dead." 

"It's Sunday," shrugs Jim. But it's true, the place is really dead. It always seems quieter when Tony's not here, too. 

After Mongke leaves, it's so dead that Jim puts the television on. 

He starts washing glasses while glancing up and half listening, marveling (with annoyance) that Mongke didn't find time to wash anything, given that it's been so dead. And who dirtied the glasses in the first place? _Did Tony leave things like this last night?_ That's not like him. In fact, Tony sometimes has to be interrupted from washing and straightening things behind the bar to actually serve up drinks. 

_God_ , it's dead this evening. He's actually the only person here at the moment -- he can't remember that ever happening, even on a Sunday. A bar always has its barflies. But not today. Jim's eyes and ears keep straying to the TV as a substitute for people.

There are about five minutes of syndicated sitcom, mostly ending credits and commercials; then the news. A reporter speaks from in front of a statue being unveiled. "...took nearly two years to rebuild after the Jigokiller attack by the 'Galactor' terror organization which levelled nearly the entire..." 

Jim makes a face and hits the MUTE button on the remote, turning away. He doesn't want to hear that word. All that is over. Life goes on. It's got nothing to do with him. 

Everybody knows how close things came to the end of the world. Nobody likes to think about it very much -- at least, nobody Jim knows. It's like thinking about one's own death -- knowing it is inevitable, but not lingering in this knowledge too long. Sliding away to the day to day minutiae of living, and trying not to think about the hard edge of death right beside you all the way... _two seconds away..._

Jim shudders. Well, it couldn't have been the Rapture. His sister is still sending postcards.

His attempts at jokes with himself are falling flat. He's not good at them, really. Tony is the funny one. He wishes someone would come in already. It's creepy. He would almost be glad to see that schmuck Georgie come slinking back, and listen to some of his gossip...

_Well, maybe it's not **that** bad._

Grabbing for the other remote, Jim starts up the jukebox and sets it to RANDOM. 

A minute later, wincing, he shuts it off. He _doesn't_ so much need the Sinead O'Connor song stuck in his head. In fact, if only he had the key, he'd open up the box and start weeding out some discs. But the owner has that, and Nick's out of the country somewhere again. Besides, if one _were_ to take out all the discs that had unhappy love songs on them, what would be left -- ?

The door opens, and Jim's head jerks around. The rush of warmth he feels at seeing Tony walking in takes him rather by surprise; indeed he would have been glad to see practically anyone familiar, but the fact that it is Tony is somehow... just exactly what he needed.

"Hey," says Jim.

"Hey," says Tony.

Jim realizes, _I've missed him. Really talking to him._ Jim has been evading all questions since Ken came back into his life, but now Tony knows, he longs to be able to talk to him again. Except that yesterday, Tony suddenly... complicated things. _I'm happy for you,_ in that transparently painful way. 

He reaches automatically for a glass, watching Tony come in and sit down in his favorite spot at the corner of the bar. Vodka, cranberry, two wedges of lime. 

"Where is everybody?" says Tony, looking around. "Church picnic running late?"

Jim can't help it. He laughs, shaking his head as he sets down Tony's drink. Tony nods in acknowledgement and takes up the glass, taking a swallow without even squeezing the limes. 

"Sorry if I got weird on you," he says, frowning down at the contents of his drink, his eyes following the ice around as he swirls the glass. "And sorry I left things kind of half-assed here last night. I'm sure Marty didn't wash anything either."

"It's 'Mongke' now," says Jim. Tony lifts his eyes long enough for an ironic roll. "Anyway," Jim continues, getting himself a glass of Coke even though he isn't thirsty, "there's nothing to be sorry about."

"I was just surprised, is all." A little... sullen, perhaps? Jim frowns.

"Surprised, that I could possibly be with somebody?" He'd meant it to come out light, but it doesn't sound quite as light as he was expecting. 

"No," says Tony, just defensively enough that Jim has to wonder a little. "Just surprised... how it felt finding out about it. That's all." 

A short silence.

"I'm not sure exactly what there is to find out about," Jim surprises himself by saying. "He's been staying at my place. He's... he lost somebody. His lover. And I know how that feels..." 

"Looks like you know how something else feels," says Tony.

Jim turns red.

Tony adds hastily, spreading his hands, "I'm not trying to give you a hard time about it..."

"Yes, you are." But Jim is smiling a little now, somehow. And Tony doesn't deny it again.

"So that's what's been going on," says Tony thoughtfully, finally remembering to squeeze the lime wedges. Normality seems to have been restored between them, along with eye contact. 

"Yeah. Sorry I haven't..."

"No, no. It's cool." Tony seems very cheerful now that he has finished his first drink -- maybe a little too cheerful for only one drink's worth. "We're friends. You can talk to me if you want, but I'm not gonna twist your arm." He nods to Jim's silent question of _Another drink?_ "I know how it is," Tony continues softly as he watches Jim pour. "Some things are too weird to talk about right away."

The door finally opens to let in a knot of thirsty customers, and Jim never gets a chance to ask Tony what he means by that.

***

 _If there is a tiny spark at the back of Joe's mind that wonders if he is dreaming, it is silenced by the flavors of breakfast. He can taste it, feel the food in his belly. It's not a dream. This is real. He can smell the faint scent Ken's mother wears..._ as she goes back and forth in the kitchen, occasionally sitting down to eat but then jumping up again to get something else, and never for herself. Joe, who can remember his own mother saying _eat what's on your plate or don't eat at all_ , is amazed by Ken's mother and how much like a waitress she acts. 

But then remembering his own mother isn't a happy thing. Not even thinking about good times -- somehow that's worse. 

"Joe? Aren't you hungry? Would you like me to make something else?"

He hunches his shoulders. "I'm done."

"Thanks for breakfast," says Ken. That's the _right_ thing you're supposed to say, like they taught him while he was still in the hospital. Joe just _knows_ Ken said it right then to correct him. He clamps his lips shut. 

"We have to get going, Mom," says Ken, getting up. "Hakase wants to see us."

Joe scowls. "What for?"

"He said it's important. Come on, Joe. We better not be late."

Ken grabs for Joe's hand and drags him toward the kitchen door. 

"Let go of me!"

"Come _on_ , Joe. Hurry!"

Ken releases his hand just as he passes, stumbling, through the door. The light on the other side is suddenly very bright and Joe stops short, blinking. 

_Huh?_

Ken's a lot taller all of a sudden. But then, so is he.

They are standing side by side in Nambu's office. Nambu has just finished speaking, handing down the verdict, and Joe's stomach clenches with sudden rage.

"What do you MEAN," says Joe slowly, "SECOND...?"

Ken stands beside him at attention, all smug -- because he _knew_ he would be chosen as First. It's not like there's any surprise at all. He knew it all along! And so did Nambu. And so, obviously, did _everyone_... except Joe. 

_I'm not taking orders from you,_ Joe thinks fiercely, _Not you or anyone._

And yet here he is standing in front of Nambu, almost incandescent with fury, and yet -- he's not walking out. (No, where would he actually go? He's fourteen. Well, he will be tomorrow. But even then, where can he go that isn't here?

"Joe," says Nambu patiently, though there's an edge to the patience that suggests it is running out, "I don't have to justify my decisions to you. But just this once, I will explain."

And he begins talking about leadership and responsibility and a whole lot of crap that Joe is already tuned out on. He scowls down at his shoes.

Ever since Ken's mom died three years ago, Nambu has been acting like the Big Daddy over everybody, throwing his weight around just so that Joe can feel trapped. His scowl deepens. He KNOWS it's not really just for that. But he can't HELP it. 

At his side, he feels Ken shift a little. He glances over. 

Ken is also frowning down at the floor. _Huh?_ Joe knows why HE is sulking but why the hell is KEN sulking? He's going to be the big fat Number One Guy, isn't he...?

"... is it, Joe?"

 _Huh?_ Crap, he wasn't listening. He shrugs. 

"Good," says Nambu, "I'm glad we're clear on that." 

Beside him he can feel Ken trying not to sigh. 

"Report to the gym," the old man goes on, his eyes flicking to Ken for a moment in a way that Joe knows means something. But then the next words fill him with new outrage: "Your training sessions will double from here on -- in frequency and duration."

 _What?_ They already practice _all_ the time!! Twice as often AND twice as long? 

"Hai," says Ken stolidly, as though Nambu just asked him to drop off some letters in the mail on the way out. 

Gym? Why not. As good a place as any to kick Ken's ass.

"I can't _believe_ this. Second! Me!"

Ken rounds on him. "Well, you'd _better_ believe it. It's not like you even _tried_ to be First!"

"What the hell does that mean?" Joe takes a jab at him, Ken dances back, eyes bright and angry. 

"You didn't even hear a word Hakase said in there! Right there, Joe, that's _stupid!_ What would you do, just drift off while he's briefing you for a mission?"

A kick. Joe scarcely sees it coming, blocks it with his arm.

"Well he _wasn't!_ " Jab.

"No, but he tried to tell you something important and you don't even know _what_."

The last word is punctuated by a flurry of punches. Their voices echo in the high-ceilinged gymnasium as they circle and spar. No sensei comes to lead them; Nambu must have sent them down here to fight it out. Joe _hates_ being predictable.

"Why does that mean I have to be _Second_?" 

"You think it's a contest over _numbers_? Joe, someone has to be _responsible_ \-- "

He is so fucking sick of that word! "You're not responsible for me!"

Ken laughs. "Joe..." his voice is low, but increases suddenly in volume, "I have ALWAYS been responsible for you! Since the day you moved into my house!"

That stings. "I didn't want to be there!" Joe can remember how from the first, Ken has been scolded for everything either of them did. He feels like he's been _tricked!_ "I'm sick of being pushed around and told what to do!" He lunges. 

"Everything has to be about _you_ , doesn't it?" and now Ken's breathing a little harder. 

"Well, don't worry about it anymore," Joe snarls, "I'll leave! Then it can be all about _you_. I bet you'll _love_ that."

"You're not going anywhere," says Ken. He sounds so sure, so smug, Joe bares his teeth.

"What," Joe sneers, "You're gonna rat me out to daddy Nambu now...?"

"No," Ken says evenly. "Now you deal with me."

"Oh, I'm _scared_ ," Joe is in the midst of saying, when suddenly things change. 

Ken comes at him. Joe only has time to lift his hands before Ken has slammed him down, painfully hard, face down on the slightly padded floor. A knee at the back of Joe's neck. He scarcely has a chance to react, let alone fight back. One arm is burning, twisted behind him, and the other is pinned down with Ken's other knee. He must be on some pressure point, because Joe can't move at all. 

Ken leans down, slowly, and says right in Joe's ear,

" _I've been holding back._ "

"What?" he gasps, words muffled. 

"I've been holding back when I fight with you," Ken says. 

He waits for several seconds, letting this sink in. Then he releases Joe and stands, stepping back to his previous position while Joe picks himself up, his hands tingling.

Ken looks him in the eye. "So are you gonna run away now?" He sounds all cold... as though Joe had actually _meant_ it.

"Shut up," mutters Joe, rubbing at his shoulder. 

_How did he do that? I need to learn to do that... take him down a peg..._

Joe looks up. "Don't hold back anymore," he says, his voice just slightly less belligerent. 

Ken seems to thaw out, and he smiles. "I won't."

***  
 _He's not here. He's not here, and I'm acting like a fool._

Cold and aching and filthy from scrambling around in the dirt all night, Ken hunches in the cockpit of his plane, shivering, unable to get warm again, breathing on his chapped hands. 

There is no reason to stay here, but where should he go? There is no place that is the place he is looking for, if there is no Joe to be there in it. Ken's tired. He's tired, and cold. Too tired to fly.

If only he could just give up.

He tried that once. The results... well, the results had been unexpected. 

_The night he broke down the door._

No. No... he does not want to remember that now. Too tired. No dreams.

Lights out. 

_What are you, stupid?_ says Joe. 

Ken opens his eyes. 

He feels as though he only slept a moment, startled awake by Joe's voice -- but the sun has jumped across the sky.


	11. Chapter 11

"So what does he do?" asks Tony. 

Jim pauses in what he's doing down behind the bar -- the messy task of replacing the Coke syrup under the mixers dispenser. "Huh? What d'you..."

"For a _living_. What does he do?"

Jim is silent while he finishes what he was doing, reattaching the hose to the carbonator pump. But he doesn't even have to think of what to say, because when he stands up behind the bar again, Tony has an ironic look on his face. "You don't know." 

Jim shakes his head, looking down intently at his hands as he washes the sticky syrup off in the bar sink.

"Do you even know his last name?" 

"It hasn't come up," says Jim, and even he can hear how small his voice is when he says it. Tony sighs, shaking his head.

"Listen," Jim says sharply, "I told you. He's been -- suffering. I haven't exactly been interrogating him -- "

"No, just fucking him," says Tony, raising his eyebrows.

Jim turns red. _Technically, he's fucking me_. But he doesn't deny it, even though he's never yet been the one on top. 

"He's living with you, right? And you don't know _anything_ about him?"

"Not much," Jim admits. He waits for Tony to yell at him, tell him he's an idiot, that Ken could be a fugitive, a serial killer. But Tony surprises him by saying, 

"If I had to guess, I'd say he was in the service."

"What?" Jim stares at him. "You mean -- _military?_ "

"Yeah. The way he carries himself," says Tony. "The way he looks at people. I saw a guy like that once, a Special Forces guy. He would size up a room when he went in it, like your Ken guy does."

'Your Ken guy'. Jim supposes it could have been worse. But he is frowning now, disturbed by the notion. Tony was 'in the service' himself; he would know. 

His mind's eye blinks open, and shows him the scars drawn in white lines on Ken's muscular back. He's traced them with his fingertips in the dark. And then, the dancing martial-arts moves that Ken does when he gets up. 

"Maybe," he says slowly. "I guess... it's possible." 

"Maybe you oughta ask him," says Tony softly, eyes intent upon Jim's face. "Unless... you really _don't_ wanna know?"

 

Later, as Jim is driving home, these words linger, echoing. _Damn Tony, can't he leave well enough alone...?_ But this is unfair, and he knows it. Tony's questions and comments are neither idle nor frivolous, and Jim can't just dismiss them. 

It's true. He's got someone living in his apartment whose _name_ he doesn't even know. 

Or, he _did_. Ken has been gone for three days since Miss Lily's sad story. Jim didn't tell Tony about any of that. 

The plaster will have cured now, Jim should go back and finish the job on the wall, but he's afraid of what he might say to her -- or she to him. He doesn't want to go in there while Ken is gone, to be told that he's never coming back. 

As he has for the last two nights, he calls out to Ken, turning on the lights in the kitchen and living room. He's always braced to be startled, as he was the last time Ken came back, but to his disappointment, Ken's still not here. 

_He disappeared for a year once, after all. Three days, that's nothing..._

He starts to rummage through the refrigerator, but realizes he's not hungry. He just doesn't like cooking for one. It seems a lot of work to make even the simplest thing for himself, when he'd gladly go to ten times the trouble if only there were someone else (like Ken) to help eat the meal. 

Closing the door again, he glances up: his gaze falls upon the slim box resting on top. Dad's Purple Heart. 

_Is it yours?_ Ken had asked him. As though that were a normal thing to ask. 

Jim stays up a while, watching TV without really seeing it. He keeps expecting... Something. He wouldn't hear Ken coming, of course, but it seems odd that he hasn't had Miss Rose banging at the door, _Good boy, you finish fix shelves now!_

But at last his nodding head and stiff neck prompt him to peel himself out of the recliner and shamble to bed. The bed is cold, as usual; but he falls asleep before it even has a chance to warm up with his body heat. 

It's not a noise that wakes him. He doesn't know what it is -- a change of pressure, a slight draft on his face -- some subtle change that reaches him even in his sleep. Jim opens his eyes. 

_Someone is in the room._

Adrenaline makes his heart leap into high gear, even as he recognizes Ken's shape.

Ken, standing in front of the window, looking out. The streetlamp outside outlines his silhouette in pale electric moonlight. _Like a human-shaped eclipse._

Jim is almost afraid to breathe; the moment seems so fragile, so unreal. If he moves or makes a sound, this apparition will disappear.

Ken turns his head to look back at him. The light illuminates one side of his face, leaving the other half in darkness.

Jim pushes up on one elbow, staring. 

"Who _are_ you?"

He didn't really mean to say it aloud. The words hang in the air between them.

 _Sadness._ Heart still pounding, Jim is shocked by the intensity of it. It seems even deeper and vaster than the misery he's already seen. As though that one visible eye is a window, not into the soul as the old saying goes, but rather a viewport into the depths of space. 

Like the angel of Death saying, _I'm really sorry about this, but..._

Jim shivers, blinking. _Wake up!_ he tells himself. _You're thinking crazy things. You're dreaming. Or something._

This seems to work. In the next moment, the look changes -- still sad, but _human_ sad -- comprehensibly sad. Then Ken moves away from the window and into darkness, toward the bed. 

Ken stops in the patch of light from the other window and strips out of his clothes. Jim catches a glimpse of his body before he moves again, and then with a rustle of sheets Ken slides up against him. 

Jim shivers again, this time in pleasure. Ken's skin is slightly cooler than his; he has been cocooned here in blankets, while Ken stood near the window. As they press together he feels as though he's sharing his heat, letting it flow to Ken and equalize between them. 

_Where were you?_ he does not ask. _I missed you,_ he does not say. His hands move down Ken's back, fingertips skimming over the tracery of scars. _Where did you get these?_ he does not inquire. 

There's only the sounds of breathing, skin on skin, skin sliding against sheets. Ken's skin feels hot to Jim now, glowing against his. 

Ken seems to be in no hurry to take control of things. No hurry at all, even when kissing and stroking and sucking have them both panting with need. Jim hesitates in confusion, then leans away to reach for the lube. He'll get himself ready, and maybe then... 

Ken rolls toward him, puts a hand on his arm. Jim hesitates, looking toward him even though he can't really see his face. 

"Your turn," Ken murmurs. 

"Huh...?"

After a moment's pause Ken says, "Unless you don't want to." 

" _Want_ to?" Jim repeats idiotically. His brain doesn't seem to be working. All the blood in his body is somewhere else for some reason. 

Ken waits.

" _Yes_ , I want to...! I'm just -- I've -- Um." Taking a breath shaky with laughter at himself, "OK."

Somehow it simply has not occurred to Jim that this is an option. Even though the gossip in the bar last year had Ken solidly on the bottom, he just doesn't seem that way to Jim -- not up close. 

Jim's startled to be asked, but he's getting used to the idea very quickly. He gathers his wits together enough for the task at hand. Anticipation, excitement -- and fear too, fear of screwing up somehow, overwhelmed by this honor. 

_When in doubt,_ he reminds himself, _do what you know feels good._ Gently he pushes Ken onto his back, feeling a little thrill when he is obeyed. He leans down... one hand reaching down between Ken's legs as he takes his cock into his mouth again. 

As a slick finger coaxes and then slips in to the silky heat inside him, Ken moans, arching his back. " _More_..." 

_More motion? More fingers?_ Jim decides to try first one, then the other. Ken spreads his legs wider and urges him on. 

He wishes he could turn the light on, wishes he could see Ken's face, his body as he pants and writhes like this. _Yet maybe he wouldn't, with the light on._ Somehow this is not the time to ask. The scent of Ken's skin, the _feel_ of his beautiful body, the taste of his cock, the sound of his breathing and his voice, these are already a feast for the senses. And there is still the main course.

"Fuck me," Ken whispers, his voice harsh. "Now." 

Jim is gasping as he lifts his head and slides his fingers free; he moves forward, on his knees.

" _Now_ ," says Ken.

They both cry out when he pushes in. Jim fights for control -- not to come _right this instant_ at the sensation, at the hot tight grip around his cock. Trembling, leaning on his hands, he slowly bends his elbows till he's lying on top of Ken, in kissing reach of his mouth, Ken's cock rubbed between their bellies. And Jim starts to move. 

"Oh. _God!_ "

It's -- incredible, the most -- dazzling feeling, it's not just his cock that feels good, his whole body is involved, nerve endings sizzling like fireworks. Ken's hands are gripping his shoulders. After a little, they wander down his back to his butt, pulling him in harder, faster. 

_Ah_ , it's too good to last... _ah,_ if only it could go on and on, but the rhythm is peaking and suddenly Ken is arched back, shouting hoarsely, tightening around Jim's cock in pulsing waves as wet heat spreads between them... _he's coming_ , it surprises him somehow, that _he_ can make Ken come this way, and now it's too good to last _another second._ "Ken," he gasps, then almost convulses in climax. "Oh... _God_..." shuddering, spurting, still deep inside as Ken clutches him close. 

After a minute, head down on Ken's shoulder, shivers still running rampant through his body, Jim laughs softly. "I've never done that before," he confesses. "I hope it was all right."

"You haven't...? It was perfect," Ken says. Jim can hear him smiling.

A rush of giddy warmth moves over Jim, and he opens his mouth before he even realizes what he's about to say.

"I love you," Jim says into the dark.

And then he cringes, squeezing his eyes shut against the long silence that follows. It seems to go on and on and on. 

_Oh my God. What the hell am I saying! What the hell did I do!_

He would give anything. Anything in the world to call those words back. 

"I'm -- sorry. I just, I didn't mean to..." Agonized, he babbles an apology that doesn't seem to go anywhere. He never meant to say that. Though it is true. He's glad now of the darkness, glad he can't see Ken's face now -- and glad, too, that Ken can't see his. 

"It's OK," says Ken. Not an acceptance, or a denial. 

"...OK," Jim says softly, and nothing more -- in the spirit of locking the barn door after the horse has already gone galloping down Main Street.

It takes him a long time to fall asleep after Ken does.


	12. Chapter 12

_Who's_ number one?

He smirks. _Oh_ yeah. 

_Well whaddyaknow. I'm first at something, huh._

Not like it's any surprise, really. But still.

Joe got _laid_ today.

 _And_ he rocked her world. She'd said so. He's even got a couple of scratches on his back. 

Damn, he feels good. He felt really damn good in the midst of it, of course, but even now, hours later, his whole body is still thanking him. 

Heh.

So he's looking for Ken. So he can rub his nose in it. 

_You may be first in everything else, but I'm first where it matters!_

It takes a while to find him. Dammit, why the hell isn't he right on hand for the big news? It _figures_ Ken would be difficult on purpose.

The last place he looks, naturally: Ken's room.

"Reading?" says Joe in disgust. "You're _reading?"_

Ken sighs and lowers the book. "It's an assignment. You're supposed to read it too." He shows the cover to Joe. 'Sun Tzu's _Art of War_ '. 

"That's stupid," Joe pronounces, in deeper disgust. "It's not an 'art'."

 _Vengeance_ is an art. 

Which reminds him.

"You look happy," says Ken, suddenly giving him an 'in' after all. "Something good happen to you?"

"You might say that," Joe smirks. "Or you might say something good happened to _her_."

Ken is looking at him like he's crazy. "What are you talking about? Who's 'her'?"

"That redhead that works for house security."

Ken just stares at him. God, Ken is so _stupid._

"Huh...?"

"I HAD SEX WITH HER," Joe nearly shouts. "Why are you so retarded!"

_(what are you, stupid?)_

"You..." Ken is wide eyed, "...did?"

"Hell yeah," and he's all proud now, oh yeah, and Ken doesn't like it one bit, does he! _Hah._

_I knew he'd be pissed. But this is even better than I hoped._

"You... That's..." _Oh, this is great!_ "You mean -- Officer Batesias?" says Ken, incredulous, but seizing upon this detail. "Joe -- she's -- "

"A hottie," supplies Joe helpfully as he leans against the bookcase, smirking.

"She must be -- over thirty! And she works for Hakase -- ??"

"You keep him out of this!" Joe shouts, suddenly alarmed. Hakase _would_ freak out, come to think of it. 

Ken shouts back, sitting up. "I wasn't _going_ to -- "

But Joe's not listening. He's on a roll. "You're just jealous!"

Ken goes still.

Joe savors the moment, Ken's stricken expression, his pale staring face. _Got you! Oh, man, I got you!_

Thrill of victory!

Somehow though, it's not so satisfying when it just goes on and on, Ken staring at him like that. Shouldn't he still be sputtering?

"You _are,_ you jackass," Joe finds himself filling the silence. "It just kills you not to be first at absolutely everything. Doesn't it!"

It takes Ken a long time to answer. 

"Yeah. It does," with a weird bitter smile. "You're right. You win."

And he picks up the goddamn _Art of War_ again, lying back on the bed.

 _Sore loser,_ Joe thinks with satisfaction. _Is there a chapter in there on that?_

"Congratulations," Ken mutters from behind the book. 

Joe goes out, slamming the door. 

***

_Wait._

_Oh, God, wait._

Joe tries to hold onto it, but the memory of his sixteen-year-old self is wavering, washing out, slipping away into darkness.

_Ken, oh my God. I was so stupid. I've always said the most godawful stupid things._

_How could you love a bastard like me?_

It's not the first time he has asked this question -- inside his head. He was so blind. 

_You're just jealous._

Ken's face, drained of color except for the starkness of his eyes. His knuckles, white on the book.

_He thought I knew. He thought I was taunting him with it. Until I opened my mouth again and he realized he was -- safe._

Joe wishes he could close his eyes, cover his face. The urge to do so does not dissipate. But in this void he has nothing _(no eyes. no face. no hands no nothing)_ but his thoughts, naked in the dark.

 _You win,_ Ken said. _Congratulations._

Add, now, the urge to punch something. Still no hands, though.

_Christ! How was I supposed to know?_

How could he not have seen it? But if he had, what would he have done? What would he have said?

 _Something worse._ Something really unforgivable. He doesn't doubt it for a moment.

He's so good at 'unforgivable'. He's kind of got it down to an art form.

But Ken _did_ forgive him -- the worst thing, that most unforgivable thing that he did. What he did to Ken in that cell. 

It's a thing he doesn't like to think about, a place he doesn't want to go. But thinking about it at all seems to conjure it up whole, to fill his empty senses even as he struggles to keep it out. _No, I don't want..._

But try as he might to keep it out, darkness- _now_ becomes darkness- _then_ \-- and Joe opens his bleary eyes to black glass, and a chain, and Ken's naked body at the other end. 

He puts his hand out and finds it clamping down on Ken's arm, fingers spasmodically gripping.

"Where are we?" he asks, or tries to ask. Something is wrong with his mouth. Actually, something is wrong with his whole body. 

"In trouble," says Ken.

"Hah. What else is new..." Still garbled. Like his whole body has been at the dentist's for about a week. God, he feels like shit. And it's fucking _cold_ in here. He leans against Ken and things go grey-to-black again for a minute.

_Wait... wait a minute. I've done this before. Done this... before..._

It's more than ordinary deja vu. If each memory is like a brightly lit island floating in the darkness of his subconscious, this one is more like an archipelago. This time he is... awake... inside himself, inside his memory. He watches himself talking to Ken, trying to sit up. 

"Time's about all we've got," Ken says, and when the unconsciousness of memory slides him back into the darkness again, Joe thinks,

_Maybe I **am** dead._

_Maybe this is -- purgatory._

It must be. Must be. 

This darkness -- it's -- gone _on_ too long. The old man said -- what was it -- oh Christ, he can remember all this awful shit he ever did to Ken down to the finest detail, but he can't remember exactly what the old man said before the lights went out, he'd been busy panicking. 'Few somethings only'. Days? Weeks? Whichever -- It's been longer than that, it's been longer! Whatever he was doing went wrong. Joe's dead. He's dead, dead and damned in the dark, and doomed to wait out the centuries reliving it all -- all the pain he has caused without noticing.

He wakes in the cell again, and they talk by sign for a little while, speculating about Berg Katse. 

_Who was it that had us?_ He never knew. He didn't think Ken knew, either.

Then the stasis. A flash of the woman, dressed like Jun. What was her name? He can't remember that either. 

_She died in my arms._

But he doesn't know what her name was, any more than he knows the names of all the others he killed -- _Galactor scum._ Even if it _was_ in the name of his vow, all of those souls are still on Joe's account. What might it be... a hundred years apiece?

_Goons fifty each. All others a hundred._

Then there was Alan. Five hundred for Alan, surely, a priest. That, too, is on Joe's account. Not Ken's. Absolutely not Ken's. _Make it a thousand if you have to..._

Crazy thoughts. In the memory, he's emerging from the stasis now, drugs coursing through his blood, suddenly giddy and flushed and vaguely sick, blurting out the one story he was never never never gonna tell _anyone_ , let alone Ken. He tells it all, baring his stupid soul for no good reason. 

And then... 

Then...

Things fracture.

 _Fracture_ , and tilt broken reflections across his tongue; he is on fire and babbling like a prophet, trying to tell Ken, trying to tell Ken what he sees, because it's important, he can see it, each moment, but it's happening so quickly _so quickly_ and he can't talk fast enough to _explain --_

 _the spider,_ yes, the tracer in the gun when Ken insists on leaving him behind "for his own good" and 

_caught in the gears,_ yes, the feather, the missed strike against Katse, and

 _the shadow fucking up the sky_ \-- the shadow...? _(I don't... remember that one but oh wait)_

It's slipping away, the vision, this 3-D seeing-in to compressed realities, but --

 _ **wait**_ , one more, _important, important,_ I heard Katse say it I don't understand but it sounded like 

_(cross karakoram) -- !!_

_Fracture,_ and

(oh god i'm hit i'm hit i'm hit and hit and hit and I don't know how much blood i got left but it's less and less all the time)

(ken the entrance to the base it's here it's here it's _here!!!_ )

 

***

Jim wakes up slowly. There's some reason he doesn't want to wake up at all -- but without waking up, he can't recall what it was. Something he said...

 _oh God._ Yes, something he said. _I'm such an idiot..._

Unwillingly, but unable to help it, he opens his eyes. And of course, of _course_ he is alone, alone in the bed... _gone again and this time I gave him good reason not to ever come back. Way to go, J --_

_What's that smell?_

Groggily, he sits up.

_Is that coffee?_

It is coffee.

Blinking, he slides out of the rumpled bed, pulls on pajama pants -- and goes down the hall, the boards creaking loudly under his bare feet. 

Ken is still here. And he made coffee. 

Jim stands in the doorway, still blinking. It seems to be a natural response to complete bewilderment. Can't believe your eyes? Just keep on blinking until the world changes. 

He can't blink his nose, though. He can't even wiggle his nose, never could. The scent of the coffee is real, though, and so is Ken, sitting at the table and reading something -- one of dad's old books, from the look of it. Yes, he recognizes it now. _The Art of War._ Jim gave him that for Christmas, years ago. Of course dad had gotten no further than the author's name before deciding to have nothing to do with it. 

Although he could not have failed to hear Jim approach, Ken doesn't look up at him until he speaks.

"Ken...?" His voice is morning-rough and slurred with sleep.

The direct crystal blue gaze does a lot to wake Jim up. "Morning," says Ken, not putting the book down. "I made coffee..." Rueful smile. "That's really all I can be trusted to make."

_you're here? you're really still here? after I opened up my big stupid mouth like I did?_

Ken keeps looking at him. Jim clears his throat and tries a smile. It fits better than he expected. 

"Can't cook, eh?"

Ken shakes his head.

"Well, that's all right," says Jim, "I can." 

And he moves into the kitchen, pours some of the coffee (Ken made it somewhat too strong, but Jim would rather have a hole punched in his stomach than criticize it) and starts making breakfast to go with it.

"Yes, you can," and Ken puts the book down on top of the radio. "How come you don't do that for a living?"

Jim turns his head to stare. "For a living...?"

"You could have your own restaurant..." Ken suddenly looks embarrassed. "Sorry, I guess it's none of my business. If you like being a bartender..."

Jim is silent for several minutes, tending to bacon and shredding omelet cheese. 

"I don't know..." He can imagine dad's voice. _someone like YOU? run a business? don't make me laugh_.

"What do _you_ do...?" he asks suddenly, unable to prevent himself. Tony asked him this. He had been embarrassed not to know, not even to be able to reliably guess. _oh, I think maybe he's a cat burglar..._

"I'm a pilot," says Ken. 

_A pilot._ Amazing. A perfectly normal job! It fills him with elation. Information. Something real, something concrete.

"Like, passenger planes?"

But suddenly he's gone too far and Ken is looking uncomfortable. 

"Sorry," says Jim, "forget I asked. I don't -- mean to pry. I just... wondered..."

"It's OK," Ken says, as he said last night. 

_It's OK._

_'I love you.' 'It's OK.'_

_I'd say he was in the service,_ said Tony.

_A military pilot? Like... fighter jets? Helicopters?_

Despite the turbulence of his thoughts, he doesn't lose track of breakfast, juggling the various tasks so that everything is done at more or less the same time. He sets two heavy plates down on the table, and sits.

"When I was a kid," Jim says musingly, "my favorite toy was a helicopter. One of those 'international rescue' ones, with a red cross on the doors. I ran around with it everywhere making _fwup fwup fwup_ noises. I don't remember what happened to it..." That last is not true actually, but Jim doesn't tell those kind of stories. " I always wanted to go up in one."

"Never been in one?" says Ken, one side of his face full of toast. "I could take you sometime."

"You _could?_ " Jim sits back, staring at him with as much amazement as if Ken had said he could grow wings and fly.

"It's not my usual ride, but I can fly one, sure." 

_Usual ride..._

"I'd -- like that," Jim says, catching himself a heartbeat short of saying, _I'd love that._


	13. Chapter 13

Black Hole. 

I've got to tell Ken. 

Easier thought than done -- no bracelet, no gun, no legs he can walk on, all he can do is crawl and bleed.

At least he made it out. At least he's got the sky -- even if he can't quite see it. No dying underground. No snuffing it on some lab table of Katse's. Drugged against his will again! -- with God knows what. And not dropping dead at last in front of Katse either, that fucking loon. This is... much better.

Joe tells himself these things, because he needs the comfort, and there's so little comfort left. He doesn't want to die!

 _Doesn't matter what you want anymore, does it..._ no matter what it was they stuck him with, the human body needs blood to survive and he's left his in a trail up the stairs of the base (slipped in it himself at one point, after he'd had to hide -- _hide from a lousy pair of goons!_ ) and now the rest is leaking out into the grass. Cools on contact. Slaughterhouse smell.

His own. Own blood. Own slaughter.

And it's foggy... he can't see more than a few feet... is it real fog, or is it his vision, the mist rising over it just a balance effect for the blood going out? No, there's ashes in the air, too, those are real enough... volcanic eruptions. Whole world going to Hell in a handbasket. 

_Phoenix is here. Ken is here. Got to... tell him..._

"Ken," he says, and this effort is painful enough, but pitifully muted. No one could hear that, even if the world weren't muffled by fog and blood loss. Deep slow breath ratcheting in, then one ragged bellow: "KEN!"

That's all he's got. He slumps face down in the grass, greying out again for a minute. _it hurts and it hurts and it hurts and I'm... so... Tired..._

He is roused by the familiar sounds of fighting. One of the team versus... Six? Seven?

_Is that... Jun?_

It's Jun, neatly dealing with almost all of them -- but rolling away from the last goon's gunfire, she runs out of room, fetching up against something with a cry. The fog. She didn't see it in the fog. 

While the Galactor takes a moment to laugh and take aim, Joe drags himself up against the stone thing behind him, whatever the hell it is, and he's got a shuriken ready in time to save Jun, pegging the man in the neck. A clean shot. 

His last one.

_My last..._

"Joe!" gasps Jun, eyes huge behind her yellow visor. 

For old time's sake, he tries for a smile. Then he falls down again, and that hurts really bad. 

_(remember at least at least you're not underground you made it out even if you never got to say goodbye)_

_"Joe, hang on!"_

"Jun..." He coughs. Wet. Grinding. Better not do that again. "Call... Ken. Entrance... HQ... it's here." 

_And that ought to do it,_ he thinks as he sinks back into the fog, the bright drifting mist that he still sees now even with his eyes shut. Mission accomplished, right? Can he die now?

No, dammit! it's not enough. He forces his eyes open. 

And there is Ken.

Ken, whose face he hasn't seen in weeks -- because there was no way Joe could hide it anymore, how fucked up he was, from Ken's eyes -- 

_And now he gets to see me like this._

Suddenly, the chance to say goodbye is a terrifying burden. Joe's not the one who can make speeches... and there's so much he can't say, whether or not the rest of the team is there.

And they _are_ here, all clustered around him. Even while every goon in the Himalayas comes homing in on Jun's signal, the rest of the Ninjatai crouch around him visibly grieving, like a wake with the starring attraction not yet quite cold. 

"Joe, you -- !" Ken starts to say, but Joe cuts him off. 

"I know. Don't say it. You know... this is just how I've always been."

_I never meant to do this to you. I don't want to die!_

"You stupid bastard! Why did you have to go off and do this? Why didn't you say a single thing about it to us?"

Joe has to cough again, he _needs_ to cough again, but it'll be at least as bad as last time and he can't let Ken see that. Ken already has tears in his eyes. He manages to let his breath out in a laugh.

"What are you gonna do? Lecture me the rest of the way?"

Words he can't call back, they've already hit Ken, who has turned his face away, gritting his teeth. 

_Dizzy..._ He's gonna pass out again soon. He has to make this quick. "Jun..." 

Ken gets up and stands aside. Joe babbles last words to all three of them, and he does his best, though his words to Jun are really stupid. He should have thought about this, when he realized he was dying. He should have thought about this. 

_I should have hit Katse with that shuriken._

_I should have said goodbye to Ken._

Too late now. For everything. 

"Now go -- you've got to -- _hurry_ \-- Katse's... starting his plan!"

He falls back. He can hear them arguing, far far away -- but he has done his best, he's got no more. No more to give. He's done. 

_Tired._ Drifting...

_"Joe..."_

Only that voice could drag him back now. He opens his eyes long enough to focus. He cannot keep them open, yet he can see Ken's face so clearly in his mind's eye.

"Joe, forgive me. We swore that when the time came to die, we'd be together, but... Now I have to abandon you. Joe... At least, take this boomerang... and... my heart."

He feels Ken take his hand, and press the birdrang, its wings folded, into it -- bringing Joe's other hand to hold it also, hold it to his chest. The gloved fingers squeeze slightly before letting go.

_I love you._

Joe cannot answer. There is no more time. No, not for either of them. Ken must go into the base now, and Joe... Joe must go... Must go...

He can hear Ken shouting in anger at the Galactors, as he slides down past it all into the dark center of space. It gives him a flicker of pleasure even as he lets go. _That's right. Get Katse for me... Ken..._

Then: nothing. For a long time, nothing. 

***

 

"So he's a pilot," says Tony, and he sounds a bit glum, as though he'd been hoping for something else. "Air Force? Navy?"

"He didn't say," says Jim, and Tony lets out an exasperated breath. 

"What is with you! Usually you know all about people before they say a word. Except for THIS guy. This guy, you sleep with, but he's like the goddamn Shadow! What is it?? The mystery, or what?"

Jim is frowning. "What do you mean, know all about people? That's not true."

Tony lifts his eyebrows. "No?"

He's about to go on, when someone down the bar signals to Jim for a drink. When Jim comes back, Tony picks right up as though they were never interrupted. 

"What about the time with Georgie? I thought he was gonna swallow his own tongue. For that matter, what about me? The day you _met_ me, you said -- "

"Wait," Jim says, holding a hand up. "Wait a minute -- "

"You knew I'd gotten divorced -- I got the papers that day, and I didn't tell you or anybody. I just walked in and sat down and you took one look at me and bam! you knew that, and that I have kids -- "

Jim is gripping the bar, white knuckled. "I just _guessed."_ He glances from side to side. Isn't anybody thirsty around here? Doesn't anybody need him to come get them a drink, for God's sake??

"Oh, come on. You did not. And Jesus Christ, what about Georgie. That thing you said about his mother."

Wince. "I just got sick of him, that's all..."

"It was pretty specific."

Yes, it was. Jim feels sick now. Georgie had pushed him to his limit, and what had felt like an extravagant, absurd insult (rare enough for Jim) had hit the mark and stuck there, quivering -- witnessed by a lot of people. 

"Mind you, I'm not complaining," Tony said. "It's more than I wanted to know about him, maybe, but at least he doesn't come around anymore. Wasn't like he was even a real _customer,_ the mooch."

Jim licks his lips. "Look, what do you want from me? I can't _help_ it. I just say the wrong thing sometimes."

"What do you mean, _wrong thing?_ How is it the wrong thing when you're always right?"

_Because. Attracting attention is always the wrong thing._


	14. Chapter 14

Somehow... thinking about it, and unable to do anything else... Joe realizes that whether or not the two of them had ever been anything beyond 'friends' and 'brothers' -- whether or not Ken had ever _felt_ more than that -- Joe's last colossal fuckup would have hurt him just as much. Just exactly as much. Yes, and very likely Ken would have said the exact same words to Joe, too. A desperate, last-minute farewell that Ken nonetheless managed to make both graceful and heartfelt -- without ever losing his white mantle of authority. Even in tears: Gatchaman.

_I've made his life a living hell. He should be glad to be rid of me._

Selfish thought. _Stupid._ He can't even wince.

It's not that Joe doesn't think. It's just that Joe is used to thinking in motion. Motion -- an idea as cruelly far away as music -- or light, or warmth. No, no motion for Joe anymore, he is collapsed down (like Katse's stupid Black Hole) into a dark heavy point of gravity, a Difficult and Troubled Soul. 

Nothing for Joe but to hold still and think. It's all he has. No one to tell him how long his sentence is. He's not sure, now, if goons really were half price. 

He bets Ken would say not. 

_Ken..._

Once they had become -- more -- to each other... it had been hard for Joe to tell, from day to day, whether nothing had really changed... or whether everything had. 

Oh, at _night_ he could tell. When they were in the middle of it, he could tell all right. Another lost sensation that makes him as hungry as for motion or light. Hungrier, maybe.

He never did say so to Ken -- he hardly ever spoke ten words altogether about The Situation, come to think of it -- but the truth is that of any pleasure, any connection he ever experienced in his life... it was best with Ken. It was better than anything.

No, no way could he have said that, no matter how happy it would have made Ken to hear it. Joe couldn't say that because of what it might mean about him -- and he'd rather stop thinking about it now, thanks. Now. Thanks. 

Only he doesn't stop. He can't. He's seen all those moments where he caused Ken pain... but there are other memories... 

For example, there was the next day -- the next day after that first night, when he woke up naked in Ken's bed, Ken clinging to him... their legs tangled up together... Joe's hand resting on something firm and smooth and warm, that it took him a muzzy minute or two to identify as Ken's butt. 

_I remember that morning. Cold. It was so goddamn cold in his house._

_Not in his bed though._

On that morning Joe opened his eyes and then closed them again, several times. Was he really awake? Was he sure he really wanted to be awake? 

"Joe," and the voice whispers in his ear now, as though Ken isn't sure he wants Joe to be awake either -- "Joe... We can't... sleep all day..." His lips are right up against Joe's neck, just below his ear. 

Joe groans, burrowing down further into the only pillow. _Hm. Déjà vu._

Ken nibbles his neck. The sensation of his teeth and tongue and breath against his skin makes Joe's spine go all fluid.

"Quit it," Joe mumbles. He doesn't mean it, though. His hand on Ken's butt squeezes slightly. 

It feels good. 

Seems to feel good to Ken, too, because he shudders and then presses up closer against Joe. They were both morning-hard already, and now just that little bit of friction, and he can feel Ken against his belly, big and rigid, hot enough to sizzle -- they're not perfectly aligned, and his own dick is poking Ken's thigh. Even this almost accidental touch against that smooth skin makes him throb, precome welling up. 

Weird, a guy in his arms. Alien. Angles instead of curves, hard flat chest, no softness at all. 

So why is it so _comfortable?_

Ken nibbles him again, sending a shower of sparks down his nervous system, and this time Joe's hand squeezes harder. God, _feel_ that. It's fucking _perfect._

Ken's hand slides down his back now, dragging a shiver down with it, and settles on Joe's own butt, cupping one cheek, like a mirror image. 

Joe shoves his face further into the pillow. It's the only darkness he's got. Just beyond the horizon of the pillow, all this stretches out before him in broad daylight. He doesn't know what he'll do if he looks. 

"Joe..." Ken's hand moves, stroking up his back again. "Don't go back to sleep..." 

"..'mnot." The words are smothered in the pillow. 

"What?"

"I'm not. Sleeping." 

"Good." His hand starts to slide down again. "You owe me a door." 

"Huh?" He lifts his head up from the pillow, startling himself with the morning world. Ow. He's got a headache. It's not too bad... as long as he doesn't move his head. He can't see Ken's face yet, either. They're too close together. 

"A door," Ken repeats. "You don't remember? You broke it down." 

_The front door._ Oh yeah. But the tone Ken says it in is fond, as though he's referring to something that happened a long time ago. When they were kids.

"Uh huh."

There is a long pause. Ken's hand on his back slows, then stops. 

"Joe?"

 _Does he think I'm asleep again?_ "What." 

"You -- _do_ \-- remember...?" 

_What if I said I don't?_ But he doesn't seriously consider lying. Anyway, who else would have knocked the stupid door down? 

" _Yeah,_ I remember." Annoyance is in his voice. That's what Ken worries about first thing in the morning -- home repair?

Ken's back has stiffened. Even this nice curve of his butt under Joe's hand has turned to marble. 

"I knew it," Ken whispers, so low that Joe can hardly hear him, even with Ken's lips right near his ear. "I knew I should have stopped you. You can't even _look_ at me."

He's already pulling free of Joe's arms by the time these words register, and Joe sits up suddenly, "Hey!" he says, loudly, making his head throb like a bell tapped by a glass hammer. 

Ken ignores him, out of the bed now and shivering, trying to find his clothes. He's hunched forward so that his hair is in his face. What the -- ? What _now?_

Cursing, head pounding, Joe throws back the warm covers and gets up -- _oh Christ it's cold!_ Stomping to Ken, he grabs him by the arm. 

"What's the matter with you?"

Ken turns his face away. 

Joe grits his teeth. "You listen to me," he growls. "You _listen_." 

But he has no idea what to say. For Christ's sake, he's not good at this kind of thing on his best day, and he's got a hangover. But Ken seems to be waiting patiently -- that, or he doesn't know what the hell else to do but hold still and wait. 

His hand, which had been gripping hard around Ken's bicep, relaxes, then slides up to Ken's shoulder. 

He yanks Ken close, puts his arms around him, forcing Ken to drop the inside-out jeans he picked up. _Those are mine anyhow._

So here they are. Naked. Broad daylight. Ken looks up at him, his eyes wide and wary. He's still listening. 

Joe kisses him -- and pulls him back, back to the bed. 

_You listen to me now._

Their warmth has already fled from the sheets, but they create new heat. Pulling the blankets all the way up over them, Joe expects to be in darkness, but the sheets are white, and the blankets are kind of beige, and so the morning light glows right through them, illuminating Ken's body.

That bruise on Ken's leg. His arm and his face, too, he saw that last night. _What did he say happened? An accident with the bike?_

Is that really what happened? If so -- the thought makes him shudder. Give Joe a vehicle with a little something _around_ the driver any day. Stupid bikes. Not that they're not _fun_ , but they're _stupid_. Good Christ, imagine Gatchaman killed by a truck. Imagine -- 

Imagine _Ken_ , just a little less lucky, dead in the road. _Like that dog_. Lost to him forever. _No!_

"Joe...?"

"You shut up," he says, his voice muffled even under the blankets, and then he leans down and kisses Ken's thigh, feather-light over that bruised spot. Ken gasps, his indrawn breath very loud in Joe's ears. 

His hand moves, cradling Joe's head. A silent approval, then. He kisses again, carefully, then blows a puff of air across the sensitized skin. Ken's fingers are trembling as they stroke through Joe's hair. The drag of his callused fingertips against Joe's scalp makes Joe's spine do that liquid, snaky thing again. He takes a deep breath.

_We both of us need a shower, but he smells good anyway._

He really does. Something about his skin. 

Joe has strayed somewhat afield of the bruise on Ken's thigh. He brushes his lips over Ken's hip, his belly. Ken is squirming, breathing hard. But he doesn't say anything. Really, he doesn't have to. Body language is clear enough when he arches his back. And Ken's cock is hard, lying flat against his belly. 

So far, Joe's been using his hands only to balance himself. Now he leans on one of them and, lifting the other, strokes an experimental line down Ken's cock with one fingertip, starting at the top and going down. 

Ken shudders, moaning, his fingers tightening in Joe's hair. A thick drop of precome, clear and shiny, is welling up at the slit. Joe looks at it in fascination. He did that. So it's his, right? 

Joe looks up Ken's muscular body -- nipples hard, chest heaving -- glances down at the perfect, shallow pit of his navel, then grins to himself. But, hm. Ken is big, but he can't quite reach _that_ far, not flat on his back. "Ken. Sit up a little." 

"...uh...?" but after a moment Ken obeys. Just a few inches of angle there and... "Stop there," says Joe. Wrapping his fist around the shaft, he pumps upward toward the head, and that glistening drop, bigger now, drips right down into Ken's navel, positioned conveniently underneath. _Bulls-eye!_ Ken's stomach twitches, muscles rippling like he dropped a pebble into a smooth lake.

"What are you _doing?"_ Ken is looking down with wide eyes, brows furrowed at the laughter in Joe's voice. 

"This," says Joe, and holding Ken's gaze as he lowers his head, dips his tongue into Ken's navel.

" _Oh...!_ " Ken stares, eyes gone round now, and then he gasps again, arching. 

Joe has time to think, _What?_ before he feels the hot spurts against his cheek, dripping down the side of his astonished face. 

He freezes in complete disbelief. Even as he hunches there under the blanket, blinking incredulously, a thick drip of Ken's come slides down his cheek and off his chin, landing on Ken's belly. 

Ken is gasping, red in the face. "I'm -- !" he gulps, "I'm -- sorry -- " 

He's embarrassed? He damn well SHOULD be embarrassed, going off like that... well, not that he hadn't had any provocation of course, but... Christ! What's Joe supposed to do now!

Ken wriggles, almost convulsively. "I _am_ sorry. You -- _surprised_ me -- "

Joe turns his head to glare at him, a look of Death that should make him slither out of the bed and crawl away in terror...

He gets just one glimpse of Ken's wide blue eyes -- before Ken starts to laugh, helplessly. 

Joe keeps glaring for a few moments, holding onto it in the face of disbelief. But it makes Ken laugh even harder. 

Slowly, Joe wipes off his cheek... then reaching up, shoves his sticky hand into Ken's face. "Here! You can have it back!"

"AUGH! JOE!"

Déjà vu again, as they fight tangled up in a blanket. 

Ken is still laughing. At some point, Joe realizes he's laughing, too. 

"OK," panting, "now we _really_ need a shower." 

"Yes," says Ken, also panting, winding down from laughter, his face still red. 

Joe doesn't think he's ever seen Ken laugh this much in all the years he's known him. Ten, now. More than half his life. 

They are still, for a moment -- breathing hard, leaning against one another, sprawled over the skewed mattresses. Then Joe sits up.

"Race you." 

"What?"

And they're off. 

There is hot water, at least. And better than that, there's Ken. At first it seems like it's not going to work, there isn't room in here for both of them. But once they're both wet and soapy, that very constraint becomes kind of, well. Interesting.

Now he's got both hands on Ken's butt, and Ken's hands slide and knead Joe's back, his shoulders. Joe's erection slides against Ken's belly, against his cock, and it feels really good. 

"Joe," and now Ken is biting at his neck, the sensations twanging Joe's spinal column.

"What," Joe pants. _Oh God, he's biting me_. It turns him on unbearably. 

" _Fuck_ me." 

It happens very quickly. Ken speaks these words, in that voice, in that tone -- Joe is at fever pitch already -- Ken, hands on Joe's shoulders, pushing up onto the ball of one foot, wraps his other leg around Joe's waist (temporarily billowing out the shower curtain) -- Joe moves one arm, reaching down, and his cock slides up and in. Tight squeeze. Hot silk.

Ken cries out.

 _Don't move._ Joe closes his eyes and groans low. After a deep, shuddering breath, Ken lifts his other leg up, and Joe is supporting his weight, impaling him with his cock. 

"Joe," says Ken.

The voice he says it in. 

"Joe!"

Joe opens his eyes. 

_Oh, angel_. 

Ken is saying his name, not to attract his attention or communicate, but in passion, in delight. 

_You think you feel good now?_ Eyes half-lidded, a smile tugging at his lips, he says deliberately, "Ken." Feet planted carefully, hands supporting Ken by his perfect butt, Joe uses his arms, his hips, and the force of gravity to give Ken a ride to heaven on his cock. And not coincidentally, carry Joe to heaven with him. Or in him. Or something like that... Thrusting. Slamming home again and again, lifting him to drop him down again, again and and again and again. Panting. Growling. 

"Joe! Yes! Joe!"

His name, and less coherent sounds. Ken's fingers bruising his shoulders. The faint taste of blood from his lip when Ken, writhing, shoulders Joe in the mouth. Joe doesn't even spare the breath to curse. He keeps thrusting. Eyes wild, he stares at Ken's face, devouring the images of incredible beauty revealed when Ken loses all control.

Now he can come. Now. Now.

" _Ken._ "

Blank moments of spasming, sweet hot oblivion. Bliss. Completion.

Then Joe opens his eyes, suddenly shivering. 

Ken is still clinging to him, eyes shut, boneless in sweet contentment. The heat between them still continues to throb as climax dissipates, but Joe's back has turned to ice. The hot water has run out.


	15. Chapter 15

_All right. Maybe I wasn't making him miserable every moment. Maybe I did make him happy every once in a while._

Actually it had been rather more often than 'every once in a while'. Even when Joe got the vague idea that he might seek out a little variety, it didn't work out that way. Variety he got, but all from Ken. 

When he got sick... Well. That's when Ken thought Joe was sleeping around, sleeping elsewhere. Joe had let him think it. _I had to let him think that._

Better for Ken to be mad at Joe for sleeping around, than all worried and upset _(and guilty, don't forget guilty)_ over him being sick. 

That is a bitter thing to have to contemplate in Purgatory. _I was faithful to you, and you'll never know it. You'd never believe it. I hardly believe it myself._

All right, if that girl at the liquor store had done any more than look him up and down, maybe he might have done something about it. If she had made the first move. But she didn't. 

No, she didn't do more than flirt, and neither did he. He just bought a bottle of vodka and took it over to Ken's, and they spent all night fucking.

 _How long did it take me to replace that door?_ Weeks, surely, before they got around to it for real. Between sex and Galactor, it was a good thing Ken had no close neighbors: the house was open to the elements and all comers. By the time a new door was installed, snow had been coming in across the living room floor. 

They'd almost got used to the cold by then. Once it was warm in the house, Joe had to get used to doing it without a blanket over his head...

He knew Ken thought it was silly, but Ken never made fun of him for it... Joe would have. _If I were him I would've said something like 'do you put a towel over your head in the shower'?_ \-- Well, maybe the shower wasn't the best example. 

Yes, he hurt Ken with his bright idea, and it had been unnecessary pain too -- Joe could have found some other excuses, surely, surely he hadn't had to hurt Ken the way he did. 

_I never even told him I loved him. No, not even at the very end. I had the chance and I wasted it._

_Why did you love me?_

He never did understand, and he never will, not if he has millennia to float here thinking about it (and he probably does). _I'll never understand why you loved me._

Well, there's no accounting for tastes, is there... 

Tastes. What a brilliant moment for Joe, walking into a GAY BAR with a couple of stoner girls... it sounds like the setup for a joke. Only it was no joke when, a heartbeat after realizing his mistake, he laid eyes on Ken -- and on that little bastard pawing him. 

_Never mind ME, what was he doing with a little puppy like THAT?_

Joe only saw him for a few moments, but he happens to remember those few moments extremely well. Even if they hadn't all been drilled in rapid observation till they could do it automatically -- it was one of those moments that slow way, way down. 

Puppy with his hand on Ken's shoulder. Ken smiling down at him. 

And then Ken looking up, feeling Joe's presence before seeing him, and that smile sliding off and away. Guilty.

Yeah, guilty, and they both turned to stare at Joe like what are you doing here, and Ken looked sick, and the puppy looked scared.

HE'S MINE, Joe glared at him. And puppy got the message. And later that night, Ken got the message too. _Mine._

_But..._

_But what about now? Now that I'm dead?_

_What will he do now I'm dead?_

_Shit._ For all Joe knows, everyone is dead, the whole world. For all Joe knows, he is enjoying his Purgatory in the center of the black hole. He could be surrounded by other dead souls. Ken could be right beside him. Or Katse. And he cannot see or hear or reach. Not anything. 

_Ken! Ken!_

_Where are you! Ken!_

If this is Purgatory, shouldn't there be other souls...

He might not be allowed to talk to them, but shouldn't they be there?

_Anyone? Is anyone there?_

_Please..._

***

 

After the meal, Ken picks up the book again while Jim washes the dishes. Ken has tried to offer to help with this in the past, but Jim is gently but firmly territorial about his kitchen, and Ken is better off staying out of his way at the table. 

He stares at the text, the page he opened at random. The copy Ken learned by heart years ago had been in Japanese; this translation renders familiar concepts almost unrecognizable. 

'If, however, you are indulgent, but unable to make your   
authority felt; kind-hearted, but unable to enforce your   
commands; and incapable, moreover, of quelling disorder: then   
your soldiers must be likened to spoilt children; they are   
useless for any practical purpose.'

 

Ken remembers _that_ one all right.

He puts the book down once again, glances at the radio. Its old-fashioned face has its frequency numbers laid out in a sort of box -- a circle made square, distorted like a Mercator map. It looks like something simple made deliberately difficult... a misstep in the evolution of electronics. 

Sounds of water, and dishes clicking together. Ken glances over at Jim's profile. Jim is looking down intently at the dishes he is washing, his face going a dull red as he senses Ken's eyes upon him. He is very quiet this morning. 

_I love you,_ he said last night. And then _I'm sorry._

Ken looks down at the table. There are a few grains of salt that missed the plate; he shoves them around with one fingertip, frowning slightly. 

He'd had to fight an impulse to run. But he just got back, and where else can he go? Where else can he go? At least here he is safe. Here he can be -- no one. He can't bear the thought of Jun... with the hope of Joe's last words kindled in her eyes, mingled with her grief to weigh him down and smother him. _Joe, how could you tell her that? How could you just -- leave me to her in your will? Don't you -- **didn't** you understand how it is for me? _

He bites his lip.

Joe is in the past tense now. Joe _was_. Joe... _is_... no more. 

When did the tears start? He is spilling more salt on the table.

After a minute, he feels Jim lay a hand on his shoulder for a moment in a brief, silent gesture of sympathy, then let go.

"I'm going to take a shower," says Jim softly over his shoulder, on his way out of the kitchen. Ken can hear the boards creaking loudly all the way down the hall. 

***  
If Joe could cry, he certainly would. But he doesn't even have that. Whether he's truly alone or surrounded by billions of silent souls, it makes no difference. He has only himself, and the things that he can remember. 

Yet he's afraid of the memories, as much as of the empty dark. Partly because of what they reveal of his various stupidities, and partly because... all too soon, he must _run out_ of memories, there will be no more, nothing left. Every word, every sensation will become worn smooth with too much handling. The madness of the dark is a real thing. It is not boredom. He cannot sleep. Alone with himself, and not entirely comfortable in that company, he mourns. He failed his parents... he made Ken miserable... he _killed_ Alan himself... 

_I never got anything right._

Well, but sometimes he did OK, in a roundabout way. He did see that much in the nightmarish visions the drugs had brought on, the second time around. _Caught in the gears._ The feather shuriken, the missed throw at Katse _(right in front of me! I missed, I failed again!)._ He had seen it, impossibly clear: the forgotten, bedraggled white thing inching its way into the teeth of a gear, the metal point lodging, clinging: a venomous insect stinging at the heart of the great machine. Flashes, fire. Shaking. The gear breaking teeth, falling away.

_Did I stop it after all? Oh God, was it enough?_

But -- that was all he saw. 

Was that the end? Did they -- _did_ all of them -- fail? Is it _fair_ if they're both dead but -- not together? Is it _fair_ not to be reunited beyond the veil, after all they've been through...

Well, as to that, apparently Joe has to pay first. Maybe they'll let him see Ken in a hundred thousand years. 

Maybe.

 _Ken,_ he mourns. He can't even comfort himself by pretending Ken can hear him. Joe is utterly alone. _Ken. I miss you._

Saw so little of him, in those last weeks -- on purpose. _So much time wasted. So many chances wasted, to be with you, to tell you, to say..._

Who is he kidding, he would still have wasted the time, there are all too few good memories to hoard. There are plenty of terrible ones, he'll have time to savor those. Oh yes, he'll have time. 

The visions. He had gone back to the beach, too. The place already worn smooth in his dreams: the sand castle, his parents slumped on the table, Papa's gun... Mama's face. And the laughing woman with the rose. 

He doesn't need to go there. He's been there and been there. _Mama. Papa._ No reunion with them, either. What would they think of what became of their son? He can't even guess, he can hardly remember what they were _like_ , he was so little, he knew nothing, he didn't even know how to fire a gun properly... he had been trying to steady his shaking hands on the big pistol when the rose suddenly bloomed bright. 

_I tried so hard to avenge you. It wasn't enough, was it? To die trying doesn't really cut it... does it?_

He's not sorry for everything he's done. No way. But he _is_ sorry he killed a priest -- he'd hardly had a choice, but that doesn't make it easier to bear. Maybe he can never be forgiven for that sin. Maybe there aren't enough years in infinity for him to pay it back. 

_I was trying to save my friends. I only went home to pay respects at your graves! I never meant to kill Alan! I'm sorry!_

Maybe... they _did_ manage to save the world, and Joe was the only one to die. It'd be only right. He couldn't stop himself from dying... he can only hope he made his death count. That the vision of the feather means what he hopes it means. That the Earth made it. That Ken and everybody made it.

_I was done for anyway._

_But I wish I'd said 'I love you' before I died._


	16. Chapter 16

Jim turns the water on and waits for the hot to come up through the pipes. Things had been so nice this morning, but then Jim turned back from washing the dishes and found Ken silently weeping. 

_I do understand. I do. I swear I do._

And he does, but -- it just surprised him. 

All Jim could do was touch him -- which seemed to him to be pushing it, after last night's overstepping of the line. He didn't dare say anything else, just let him alone and let him cry. And he hopes it was the right thing to do, he really does.

It's not as though having gone through something like this really tells you what to do. It's just some perspective, that's all, a little something in common that makes it possible for someone like Ken to need someone like Jim, even for a little while. 

Someone like Ken. What does that mean, really? Ten years younger? Handsome? Built? 

He is all of these things, and more. Intelligent. Serious. Kind, too. And with a smile that grabs you by the front of the shirt -- when he does smile, of course. 

But there's something else about him. The mysterious things about Ken, the spooky things, don't seem like something put on for their own sake, they seem to be part of him. 

Georgie had compared him to Superman. Georgie was a moron, but he'd sort of had something there. Sort of. Ken _does_ remind one a little of Superman. Not in his saving-people, superhero guise, but in the "mild mannered" one, trying to pretend to be a weak and cowardly human. 

Of course, Superman is just a kids' story.

Tony would go ballistic if Jim said something like that where he could hear it. That it's not a story for kids, that it's a story for everyone, Superman represents an ideal.... and all that sort of thing. Tony is the type of guy who gets passionate about entertainment. 

He steps in under the shower spray, closing his eyes as hot water runs down his face and neck.

He's got Ken in his apartment, in his life -- Ken still here, after last night's blunder, and here Jim is thinking about Tony and his comic books!

But somehow thinking of one leads to thoughts of the other, and they go round and around like a Moebius strip. Tony leads to questions about Ken. Ken leads to Tony's sudden and baffling surge of interest in Jim. Tony's interest leads back to Ken, and Jim's interest in him. And Ken's interest, if any, in Jim in return... _or maybe it makes no difference to him if I'm here or not... he just couldn't go home, like he said, and has no one else..._

Why does he have no one else?

Jim stops short, the open bottle of shampoo in his hands.

Joe is dead -- but doesn't Ken have any family?

More questions. He has no idea. And it doesn't seem to be something he can ask about. The subject of family is just a little too touchy, at least to Jim, for casual conversations to be possible. _did your father hate you, and hate you the worse for needing you? does your sister pretend you were never born?_

It hurts, even now, to think about Connie. He hadn't meant to. He never means to. His big sister was his friend once, his loving protector. No more. God, who loves the world and everyone in it, does in fact make mistakes, apparently. The devout -- meaning Connie -- avoid offending God by pretending such 'mistakes' do not exist. 

No, Jim doesn't want to think about his sister, or about how the nicest moments of his childhood had had her in them. She has not acknowledged his existence now for nearly ten years. It would be only fair if he could also edit her out of his life, but _he_ has no ability to do such things. He had gritted his teeth when he sent the letter telling of dad's death. He had known what the results would be. So why had he even bothered to try to tell her? 

_Because. Even after all these years, I miss her._

No, there are tears going on in the house already. Jim's are not needed. 

 

***

Joe is in darkness again. That's fine. He doesn't want to see any more. He _knows_ all the shit he did. He was _there,_ wasn't he... the good times, the bad times, they're all intertwined, he never did a nice thing for Ken without hurting him too, and mostly he just hurt him. 

But it's all he has. It's so dark, he's so lonely... He's dead and all alone, _alone alone..._ thoughts echoing down a well.

Something white. In the darkness, far away, a hint of something _white._

 _The feather?_ No. Then, wild with hope, _Ken??_

No. No, that was too much to ask. He deserves the crushing disappointment that follows such presumption. Too easy, to think he'd get a chance now _after_ the end, to say just that one simple and obvious thing. He could have said it when he was alive and he didn't and he's got all of eternity to think about it. To regret it. 

Not Ken, no. But the white thing is familiar all the same. Suddenly he has it. The shape of the wings, _Jun...?_

Closer now suddenly, _pulled_ close, unnatural motion like a jump cut in a film. She is staring at him. There is something strange about her face through the visor. Something not right. 

_Not Jun._

Come to think of it there's something not exactly right about the helmet, either. No, it's that there's no neckpiece joining to her wings, nothing protecting her neck at all. That's not birdstyle, that's a costume. 

It's the Galactor woman. The one who was frozen in their place in that cell, wearing a Swan costume (or most of one), before Ken let her out and told her to change. It's the woman who died in his arms. 

She moves closer -- _flicks_ closer without motion, always staring, never blinking. Unnatural. Unnerving. What does she want? Why won't she _speak?_

_She's dead. She's **dead!**_

_...So what? So am I!_

But why is she here? Was her death put on his account, too? Has she come to blame him? _Not everything's my fault, OK? I hardly knew where I was or what was going on -- I didn't kill you, I was just with you when you died._

Closer. Staring. Closer.

What is her name? He _heard_ it. He was fucked up, but it's there in his memory! He heard a man shout it in a hallway junction on the mech, as they made their way aft. Joe had been dangerously light-headed, trying like hell not to puke. She had made up a quick story and acted like the three of them were going off to -- 

( _"Hey! Nariko! Is that you, honey?"_ )

That was it. 

_Nariko._

She stops; she smiles, literally brightening, becoming more distinct. Then she points. Down, rigidly down, her white-gloved arm straight and stiff, held away from her. 

His gaze follows the path of her finger. When he looks down, he sees a snake next to his bare foot. He recoils, instinct straight from the spine.

But no. It's not a snake. It's the sinuous links of a chain. Cold hard metal cuff on his ankle. 

He looks up, and Ken is there, his back turned, hugging his knees. He turns to look over his shoulder at Joe, and his eyes are haunted, wary. An _oh God what now_ kind of look.

Joe is sitting on the floor with his back to the wall. He takes a breath -- and in the same moment, wakes up into the _burning_ in his body, heat in his veins, his cock standing as rigid as a cruel and unusual punishment. 

_What...?_ What's happening... _Drugged me again_... What is it this time...

That smell, oh God, it smells so _good_ , what is it, what is it, making him crazy? The most incredible... sexy smell... his mouth is watering, literally watering, he's scenting the air for it like a dog. 

_I want it. I want it. What is it, I want it._

He looks up, and his senses fix quivering on Ken. Him, it's _him._

_Want that._

"Joe...?"

Joe crawls across the floor at him. _Mine._

"Wait..."

His target. His. Retreats like prey. Smells like... _heat..._

This body in his arms, this is Ken, it's _Ken!_

(Ken. Best friend, leader, _brother!!_ )

But he doesn't care! Joe wants to _fuck_ him... he _must_... breathing in that witch scent from his neck, licking it from his skin, all thought of who Ken is or _what_ Ken is flying out of his head. Male, female, it doesn't _matter!_ He _wants_ it!

"Oh god... you smell good. You smell so _good_ , Ken... like you've been out in the sun..."

Yes, exactly like that. Ken shudders against him. 

_wait_ , Joe tries desperately from deep within. Such a small voice. _no. wait. drug. bad. harm! **stop!**_

He can't stop. He can't stop himself. He can't because he doesn't _want_ to stop, not enough -- if it was nothing but the drugs he _could_ stop! He _wants_ to do this dirty thing to Ken -- 

"Ken... _Ken... stop_ me...!"

He only just manages to force the words out before his body moves to pre-empt any such effort. He shoves Ken up against the black glass wall. Leans in. And kisses his mouth. 

Ken is stiff with shock. Of course he is. Shock and disgust! _fight me! fight!_ But he will not _fight!_

No, he does not fight. After a minute... he puts his arms around Joe's neck. 

Joe breaks the kiss, gasping. "Stop me... for God's sake...!" Again he is seeking out that scent, face pressed against Ken's neck... nibbling... _so good all mine all mine_. Smells so good, tastes even better, fucking delicious --

_wait! **wait!**_

He's panting. Fighting for control -- like trying to hold up something heavy over an abyss, as bit by bit gravity takes it away. Fingers sweating. Weight slipping. Down, down, down. "Hurt me... knock me out... do something, make me _stop!_ " Desperation. He can barely speak.

"Joe... if I do that... they'll just wait till you wake up and then give you even more." 

He groans. Ken is supposed to _help_ him! _Hurt_ him! Not keep _talking!_ "no..." Even Ken's voice is like silk on raw nerves, and the scent filling Joe's nose and mouth is stealing his reason.

"Yes. They'll just keep upping the dosage till you give them what they want."

He barely understands a word past Yes. It takes all the will power he can scrape together to grind out, "don't let me do this... don't want to hurt you..." 

"It's all right. it's not -- not rape, Joe -- willing, I'm _willing_..."

"Nani..?" 

Oh, no, he didn't just hear that -- Ken could never have said that -- he made himself hear it because he wants to fuck --

_( **needs** to!)_

"You don't -- _mean_ it...?" There's no way he can mean it. But Joe can't wait for an answer, his hands are moving feverishly over Ken, touching his face, his chest, his thighs... _smooth he's so smooth and warm and --_

Ken looks up into his face and says, panting: "Always wanted you. Don't make me wait anymore, Joe."

Blue eyes. 

_Oh God._

_Oh Ken._

Time seems to slow down for Joe. His own name is not even out of Ken's mouth before he's kissing him again, kissing him and kissing him and Ken is alive in his arms and under his mouth, Ken is kissing him _back._

Joe pulls Ken away from the wall and lies back on the floor, pulling Ken down with him. It's not very comfortable but he doesn't care. Ken's body against his, the heat and weight of him more than make up for his back. But he wants more... He rocks his hips up, and his cock is suddenly sliding against Ken's -- oh God feel that, that's -- So -- Hot --

Ken gasps in his ear. That sound... surrender sound... Joe suddenly has to _move_ , to change their positions. Now. He pushes up and turns them around, but suddenly Ken is struggling -- and half of Joe wants to _beat Ken into submission and THEN he won't struggle --_

 _NO!_ The other half drags all of himself back. A little. But enough. " _Now_ what!" _What is it? What's wrong? You said --_

Ken lifts up enough to reach down and yank something -- the chain -- out from under him. Then he lies down again, reaching out to Joe, looking up at him -- Welcoming him. 

Joe lies down on top of him, mouth returning to Ken's as naturally as that great weight slipping free of his grasp, surrendering to gravity, disappearing... Ken's hands slide down his back to his ass, squeezing... Joe's blood is going to ignite. 

"God, Ken," Joe pants, shakes his head. His mouth is dry now. He tries to lick his lips but his tongue is dry. He pushes up a little, shakes his head -- there is a warm, close fog filling it, pleasure bordering on absolute stupidity. He needs to tell Ken something. Something important, the decent thing to do... Somehow... What was it! 

Oh. Yeah.

"Need you to do something," he grits out. 

"Name it."

"I've got cottonmouth. All we've -- all we've got is spit and I haven't got any. So..."

Conveying this takes just about all the sense he has. His hips are rocking. He probably couldn't stop them if he tried. But Ken doesn't understand, he just stares, waiting for the rest. Joe draws a ragged breath. His vision is starting to get a little funny... Sparkly... His veins etched in fire... his cock aching and glowing and driving him...!

"Suck me. Get me wet, 'cause I'm gonna fuck you. Understand?"

And Ken gets the dumb look. The goddamn _dumb_ look, now of all times! -- Joe lifts his hand, and slaps it off him. There's no _time._

"I hate that look. Now: understand?"

"Yes." 

"Good." Joe strokes Ken's cheek. Then he crawls up to straddle Ken's head. It's not as effortless as a kiss (and probably a lot less fucking romantic) but after a moment -- Ken's _mouth,_ his _mouth,_ tight and wet on his cock, hot and sucking tight and his tongue tickling the head -- ! Joe groans, throbbing, and opens his eyes partway to look down. To see it. 

_oh God that's so fucking good._

He's going to come, going to come in _moments, in Ken's mouth, all over his face, oh God oh God you beautiful bastard --_

 _No,_ and again he pulls back. It's going to have to be the last time. He won't be able to stop again. 

"That's -- enough, that sweet mouth, you'll make me come -- "

Ken opens his eyes -- pupils big and dark now -- and looks up at him, smiling. Smiling, a sexy smile that goes right _into_ Joe, grabs him and shakes him with desire. "Oh, I will make you come, one way or another," Ken says, in a low voice, and Joe is going to _die_ if he doesn't fuck him _now! right now!_

He slides back down till they're face to face again. Poised between Ken's legs, guiding his shaft with one hand, Joe takes a deep ragged breath and says, 

" _Love you._ "

Then, "Sorry..."

Ken snaps, "Do it!" and for once responding to that order, obeying that voice brings instant gratification... the scalding heat inside Ken's body, _so tight --_

Ken cries out, hoarse, unexpectedly loud. Pain. Joe freezes in horror, _oh God. oh God. it's so good but I didn't mean it but oh yes oh God Ken! I'm sorry! You feel so good!!_

Ken is taking deep breaths, doesn't cry out again but his face is rigid with suffering. Joe is a monster. He has no soul, _it feels so good and monster is as monster does..._

Wait. Ken's eyes open and -- and -- he opens, melting, letting Joe in. "Oh," breathes Ken, and that sexy look from before is spreading over his face again, "Joe!"

And he _reaches_ for Joe, urging him on as Joe, incredulous, starts to move... "Don't hold back, let go, c'mon Joe -- MORE -- m-more _please_ \-- !" 

Things begin to blur. Light and motion and hot hard thrusting and Ken's head tipped back, mouth open _ah Joe ah_ gasping in pleasure -- Joe murmurs to him, passionate bursts of Sicilian. _forgive me. so beautiful. mine, mine always..._

Leaning on one hand, Joe slips the other one between them, seeking for Ken's cock -- thick and hot and throbbing in his hand, weeping slickness over his fingertips. Wrapping around it -- _ken's cock in my hand, my cock in his ass._

"JOE GOD YES JOE!"

_So beautiful. So mine._

Ken is writhing, crying out hoarsely once more, but not in pain this time. With pleasure, and perfection. Oh Christ _look_ at that, _feel_ that, Ken _coming_ , fucking _glorious_ \-- an _angel_ \-- !

Joe howls with the ferocity of his orgasm, his entire nervous system ramped up and resonating with it. He can _feel_ Ken watching him even as he arches and pumps, throbbing -- those eyes on his face. Those beautiful eyes.

And then... then... the terrible enormity of just what he has _done_ crashes down on Joe. Tears wash through him, a flood of misery he'll never climb out of alive. Oh God, what he's done. What he's done to Ken.

"Joe... what is it...?"

Joe pulls out, pulls away; though there is nowhere to hide, nowhere to run. The cell. The chain. He can't escape what he's done, not ever. 

"I'm sorry!" he chokes, "I'm sorry!"

"Don't say that. I'm not."

 _How can he not understand what I just did?_

But when Joe tries to crawl away, to put the length of the chain in between them, Ken stubbornly follows him until he gives up. He puts his arms around Joe. 

"I've always loved you," says Ken in a dreamy voice, "always."

Joe's consciousness fades to grey, then black; and in the blackness Joe floats, incoherent with wonder. 

_I did say it. I did!_


	17. Chapter 17

He can't believe it. He was just there -- he heard himself say it -- but he can't believe it!

_All along, I already said it? I said it **first?**_

Yes. He said it first. 'First time where it matters' -- for the first _actual_ time. 

But... but this changes everything! It wasn't a secret. Ken knew, Ken knew from the very beginning how he felt -- Ken was never waiting miserably for one little scrap of affection -- Ken wasn't waiting at all! Ken knew how Joe felt when Joe didn't even know...!

Well -- didn't _remember._

But now, the last words -- the goodbye -- they seem different when he considers them. If Ken already knew Joe loved him then.... then it wasn't so bad after all -- it could have been better, God knows (how _could_ he have said that to Jun?) -- but it could have been much, much worse. 

All things considered, maybe it's better to be able to look back and say "it could have been worse"... Considering it's Joe, it's a fucking miracle!

But now, knowing, he doesn't know what to think... he doesn't know what to blame himself for. 

He didn't die unconfessed. Funny to think of it like that maybe -- Joe would not have wanted to confess himself to a priest, anyway -- but that's how it feels, just the same. It was just that one thing, that one little thing... it provides the only salvation that really means anything to Joe anymore, now, here after the end. First words, last words. 

_Love you. Sorry._

***

Over the weeks, Ken starts to seem a little more relaxed and talkative -- during the day. But his dreams at night seem worse, at least to Jim (who can only guess at their content). Ken does not cry out or give any hint of what pursues him, but the rhythm of his breathing changes, and more than once he twitches so violently that it wakes Jim from a sound sleep. 

When he looks over at Ken's sleeping face Jim wonders -- fearfully -- what could be happening to him in his dreams. Ken looks so grim -- teeth clenched, eyes roaming behind his lids in a frenzy.

And Ken looks tired in the mornings. Drained... subdued. As though his spirit spends the entire night running for its life, giving his body no real rest. 

Jim tries, one morning, to bring the subject up.

"Ken... you... have bad dreams... don't you?"

"Do I?" says Ken, "I don't remember." 

_Is that true?_ Jim wonders suddenly. Ken says it in a mild voice as though he's not entirely listening, but when he risks a glance up Jim sees that Ken is frowning, his face tight. _No._ Ken is lying. Jim can see that as clearly as though a sign saying so hangs over Ken's head.

"You seem to, yes," says Jim evenly. "I only wanted to know if you wanted me to wake you up. When you have one. If you have one. You know..."

Ken is staring at him now. At last he says, 

"Have I... woken _you_ up?" 

"Only a couple times," says Jim, and now the lying sign should be hanging over his head. Ken wakes him up a lot, one way or another. 

"I'm sorry if I have," Ken said. "I didn't realize." 

This is true. But Jim hastens to say, 

"I didn't mean it as a complaint. Only I... I don't know, I thought it might help."

Ken is silent for a time. Finally he says, "You probably shouldn't."

***

 

Ken wakes up long before Jim -- as he nearly always does. He always wakes at dawn, he can't seem to help it, but sometimes he can go back to sleep for a few more hours. 

Today is not such a day. Ken lies blinking at the window for a few minutes, then sighs and sits up.

Beside him, Jim lies sprawled face down, breathing evenly. The bed is really not big enough for two, but even in his sleep Jim keeps his distance, giving Ken space instead of invading and entangling. As Joe used to do.

Ken squeezes his eyes shut, then slides quickly out of the bed. 

After showering, getting dressed and running through his _kata_ s, he turns the coffee pot on. Rather than criticize Ken's coffee making skills Jim has started making it himself ahead of time, so Ken need only press a button. Ken is fine with this. The path of least resistance... and the coffee does taste better, it's true.

Once there is enough in the pot for a cup, Ken pours it into a mug from the rack beside the sink. Sipping the hot, aromatic brew, he glances out the window. It's a beautiful morning. There is something sorrowful about that but... there is something sorrowful about everything. 

Ken takes his coffee outside to the courtyard. There is a rusted table out there beside a bird bath, and though this has been turned upside down to keep mosquitoes (and birds) from using it, and the bushes have been allowed to grow wild, there are many bright fragrant flowers, being sampled by bees and butterflies. 

Ken's eyes go vague as they rest on the slow-moving fluttering wings. It reminds him of the garden... the wonderful garden behind his mother's house. Not that this squalid little courtyard can compare, but if he narrows his focus... down to the flowers, and the wings... he can imagine he is there as he remembers.

***

It was a paradise for a little boy -- paradise, that is, till it was invaded by a hateful foreign child who lashed out at everything and everyone, even people who were only trying to help! The garden, the house, his room, his mother's attention, everything had been invaded by that miserable mannerless ungrateful BRAT! 

He asked his mother on the first night, "Does he have to be here? When can he go home?"

"Ken-chan. Joji doesn't have a home. He's going to be living with us from now on."

" _What?_ " He had shouted so loud that his mother winced. "WHY?" The very idea of it was horrifying, not to be borne! What had Ken done that he deserved this?

"Ken." She spoke sharply, no 'chan' this time. "Don't raise your voice to me like that. I've told you that Joji's parents died. He can never go home. Nambu Hakase brought him to us, and he needs us."

"Why can't he live with Nambu Hakase then?" sullenly. Ken had never had any siblings. He had never had to share his mother or anything else. But it wasn't just having to share -- ! It was having to share with someone who didn't even appreciate anything!

"Because he's here to live with _you._ And he will be studying with you. You are going to have to learn to get along with him."

He might have tried to keep going. He might have tried to insist on getting his way. But his mother looked so tired suddenly that Ken faltered, blinking up at her face. She smiled sadly at him, and rubbed his back.

"Ken-chan, I know he doesn't seem nice. But he's had bad things happen, and sometimes good people act bad when they feel bad. You'll see. Once Joji gets used to us, we'll get used to him too. You might even be friends. I would like that. I think you would be good for each other."

Ken blinked at the word 'friends'. He did not go to school with other children his age. That is, he went to school a lot, just not regular school. There were children in the family that lived next door, but the boy, Tsutomu, was older than Ken and was almost as mean as Joji. And _he_ didn't even have the excuse of having bad things happen, he lived with both his parents -- a mother _and_ a father. Ken used to have a father but he didn't anymore. 

_Joji doesn't even have a mother now. He can never go home._

Thinking about this troubled Ken. He leaned against his mother, and she ruffled his hair. 

After this conversation, Ken resolved to try to make friends with Joji. Unfortunately, Joji had made no such resolution and became even more surly and withdrawn, intensely rude when he did speak at all. 

"Where are you going?" Ken asked the next morning after breakfast, as Joji was going outside to the garden. 

"None of your business!" snarled the gaijin boy. "Go run back to your mama!"

 _There! I tried!_ But mention of Ken's mother reminded him of what she had said. She would want Ken to try harder. And Nambu Hakase would say that Ken's _father_ would have wanted him to try harder. 

"No, I'll go with you," said Ken, and stepped out of the house after him.

It was a sunny day, a perfect day for exploring the garden -- or would have been. For one thing there was the problem of Joji, and for another there was the faint sound of Tsutomu's little sister crying on the other side of the wall, as she often did. Ken had been forbidden to go over there anymore after getting in a fight; Tsutomu's mother refused to believe her son was a bully.

Joji snorted in disgust and took off running. Ken followed easily enough. Joji was pretty fast, but he wasn't as fast as Ken. Of course, he had been in the hospital and maybe he wasn't as fast as he could be. 

He could still hit hard, though. Stopping short so that Ken nearly ran into him, Joji swung around and punched him in the shoulder. "Stop FOLLOWING me!"

Ken paused only an instant in shock before swinging back. "No! This is my house, my garden -- "

"I don't wanna _be_ here!"

There it was again, he didn't appreciate anything! "I don't want you here either!"

"Then STOP FOLLOWING ME!"

Ken tried to insist. "You're supposed to --" he began, but never got a chance to finish before the gaijin boy shoved him. Ken tripped over a rock behind his foot and sprawled down hard on his butt. 

He was proud of himself that he was only angry -- that there were no tears. He could tell that this boy would only sneer at tears or any show of human feeling. Red-faced, Ken scrambled to his feet, clenching his fists, but Joji had disappeared. 

_Where did he go?_ Ken thought about what Sensei had told him just last week about stillness. He stood and closed his eyes, listening carefully. 

He need not have bothered, however. Within moments there was the sound of commotion and scuffle from over the wall, next door. Shouting.

 _What has he done?_ Ken could not find it in himself to worry overmuch for Tsutomu, who was a bully, but there was a little girl in that family too; was Joji civilized enough not to beat up girls? Ken didn't know. In any case, _he_ would be scolded for letting the foreign boy get out of his sight and into trouble, he knew that instinctively. Either Mom would scold him, or Nambu Hakase. Perhaps _both_. Again he wondered resentfully, if Hakase wanted to save Joji why didn't _he_ keep him? _He_ spoke Joji's native language, at least a little bit. It was true that Joji had learned a lot of Japanese in the hospital, but he didn't speak it right -- on purpose. Ken found that out when he tried to correct him the first time. 

"'Boku'. You're supposed to say 'Boku' for yourself," he had said. "It's respectful."

"Screw that," said Joji (he was fluent enough when it came to curse words), and went right on using 'Ore', that I-word that tough guys use, like yakuza gangsters or samurai on TV. 

Because of this, when talking to him Ken had to use 'Ore' too, or else make himself inferior to Joji (unthinkable, as Ken was _older_ ). He was sure that if his mother overheard such rough talk that he would be scolded for it, but somehow he wasn't. 

Now Joji had started trouble next door. And somehow it was going to be all Ken's fault. He had better find out exactly what it was he was going to be in trouble for. 

Joji had discovered, all by himself, what Ken had thought was his own secret -- that there was an old gate in the wall near the back, whose bamboo-slat door left lots of room at the bottom for a child to crawl through. 

Stupid Joji! Ken wasn't even supposed to go there, and now he had no choice! Gritting his teeth, Ken crawled under the gate and, as soon as he had straightened up and looked around, heard the unbelievable -- but unmistakable, even though he had certainly never heard it before -- sound of big, bullying Tsutomu -- _crying_. Sobbing!

Accompanying this, a rhythmic sound of punching and snarling -- words that Ken couldn't understand, Joji's language. He sounded like an animal, braying or barking; sounds that meant nothing but violence. 

Tsutomu was sprawled out on his back with Joji on top of him, punching his face. Ken stood staring, appalled. What should he do? How was he going to make Joji stop? He gritted his teeth. There was no time to go home and tell his mother. He had to do something now. He ran forward and pulled at Joji's arm. "Stop it!"

Joji whipped around, ready to pound Ken too, but just then there was a shriek from Tsutomu's house. Tsutomu's mother came running toward them, stumbling in hastily donned shoes, screaming "My boy! My precious boy! You leave him alone!"

Joji jumped up off the crying boy -- Ken could see blood running from Tsutomu's nose -- and immediately ran back to the gap in the gate, as though he did things like this all the time, beating up strangers and stopping only when it was time to run away. Ken was still standing there in shock when Tsutomu's mother came up and grabbed him instead. 

It was even worse than he'd feared. Tsutomu's mother was hysterically angry and did not seem to care that she had the wrong boy. She shook Ken, "You horrible animals!" Then Tsutomu sat up, crying and hiccupping, and she released Ken's arm and turned to her son. "My angel, what have they done!"

Ken could have run then, following Joji and hiding in his house until the inevitable moment when his mother was told. He wanted to, but instead he stood staring at Tsutomu, who had a black eye developing along with his bloodied nose.

"Ken-kun?"

The voice startled him. He turned to see Tsutomu's little sister Kaede, climbing down from the sakura tree. She was only about six, but she was as nimble as a squirrel. He hadn't known she was there. Their mother, preoccupied with her son, didn't notice.

"Yeah?"

"What's his name -- that boy that lives with you?"

Ken's stomach sank. Joji must have threatened her and she climbed the tree to get away. "It's Joji," he said, "but -- "

She interrupted him, "Tell Joji-kun I said thank you."

"What?"

He stood looking at her, his mouth hanging open. Behind him, the woman, still alternating between soothing words to her boy and angry words for his attacker, was helping him along the path back to the house. "Kaede!" she called sharply. "Come in right now!"

The little girl took a few quick steps past Ken.

"Wait," he said, "What? What for?"

She paused and looked back at him. "Oniisan was pulling wings off butterflies again," she said. "He's mean to me and I'm glad Joji-kun made him cry. Tell him thank you."

" _Kaede!_ "

"Haiiii," and she ran away from Ken, up to the house. 

Back in his own garden, he was surprised to find Joji just standing there waiting, glaring at Ken, daring him to start something. Ken stopped short and stood blinking at him.

"She said thank you," Ken said. 

Joe snorted and shrugged, international-language for _I don't care_. Fifteen minutes ago, Ken might have believed it. 

"Joji?"

"What." 

"I'm sorry."

He didn't say what for, and Joji didn't ask; just shrugged again, looking away.

"Just call me Joe, will you."

Ken smiled. 

"OK, Joe."

 

***

Ken watches the butterfly suddenly lift off of the flower, tumbling up into the air. He shades his eyes from the sun, watching the bright wings as it flies up over the apartment building's low roof and out of sight. 

Shuffling footsteps. He turns his head to see Miss Rose making her laborious way across the courtyard toward him. 

His stomach goes tense, clenching around the few mouthfuls of coffee he'd sipped before letting the contents of the mug go cold. He has not forgotten Miss Lily and her tale of two birds. 

She shuffles forward purposefully. Ken braces himself for her loud, querulous voice demanding or asking something, shattering the muted sounds of the morning. And for just a moment, as Miss Rose draws near she meets his eye. 

But she only nods slightly -- or is that just the way she's walking? -- and goes on past him to the other end of the courtyard, then out and around toward the corner grocery.

Ken releases a long breath and forces himself to relax, but by now the sounds of traffic in the street are growing steadily louder. The butterfly is gone, and his coffee is cold. Pouring it out in the weeds around the base of the birdbath, he takes the mug in and goes to wake Jim.


	18. Chapter 18

Jim dreams...

_The paper feathers swirl like snow around his head. He knows the edges could cut his face, but they feel soft and do him no harm. Even so he must close his eyes against the white flapping, until it stops and he looks now to find: He is standing in Miss Lily's and Miss Rose's apartment, but the women are not here, the cat is not here: he is all alone with the birds._

_They are silent, staring, just as on that day; but now Jim is alone. They are staring at him._

_A voice says, 'You gave shelter.'_

_He turns to see a robin on a perch by the open window._

_'What?'_

_'You gave shelter,' the robin repeats, clearly._

_'But I didn't help you. I didn't do any good.'_

_'You **helped** ,' says the robin, stubborn as a bratty child. 'You gave me your shirt. Here it is.' Without waiting for reply it flicks its tail and, spreading its wings, flies out through the window._

_Jim picks up something from the floor, light blue and red with the big bold number on the front. It's his lucky football shirt all right, but it's no longer the size he was then, it's even a little bit too big for him now. 'Ken should wear it,' he says aloud. 'It would suit him better than black.'_

_Lowering it, he starts back in cold shock. Sitting on the perch is a gigantic black bird with an ugly bald head, glaring balefully at him. It stinks of death, and its wings are big enough to blot out the room. There is no doubt which god this awful creature is the messenger of. Its dark feathers are like a tattered cloak; through it he can glimpse the glint of metallic bones._

_'Mine,' it says in a hissing croak. 'He's mine.'_

_It opens its wings. They are huge, they span the room with darkness, and Jim stumbles back in terror, gasping as the floor gives way, his foot thrusting down into space._

_He begins to fall. Then a jolt as someone grasps his arm. Jim stares up into Tony's face._

_'Say the right thing,' says Tony._

Jim opens his eyes.

"Morning," says Ken. "There's coffee."

***

 

Joe floats, for a little while, buoyed up by revelation. _I told him. I did._

The feeling is so good, such an unexpected relief, that it's the closest thing to pleasure he can feel in this limbo -- (no, not limbo, purgatory...) He drifts in it, enjoying it as best he can, because it's got to be the one and only good thing he ever did that he can take any credit for. Never mind what he was doing at the time... Ken said he liked that too...

 _So you knew all along that I loved you,_ he thinks, summoning up Ken's face before his mind's eye. _You knew it better than I did._ Ken's face -- infinitely familiar -- those eyes, those unbelievable eyes. _Lucky you_ , he adds, a bitter afterthought. 

Ken's face, which had been smiling slightly in Joe's mind, changes, becoming solemn and still. His eyes are still beautiful but there is so much sadness in them... infinite depths...

_I'm sorry. I wish I hadn't died. I wish I had done better by you..._

_(take this boomerang...and... My heart.)_

_You know something Ken, that was actually kind of romantic._

He holds on to the image of Ken. It's not a memory, not like the others he's been reliving. It's an image he holds in his head. If he wants to he can see Ken at any age he's known him -- but all he can see now is Ken's stricken face behind the pale blue visor, the hard glitter of tears in his eyes. _Joe..._

_I'm sorry. I'm sorry... I didn't want to die..._

Is that true? Is he sure about that one? He tried so hard to die, when all was said and done. 

But still. Lying there on the ground in the act of it, he had not wanted to be dying. 

With Ken, he had been at his most alive... lit up with the thing that blazed up between them, that burned away everything that stood in its way. 

_The best thing in my life was you,_ he tries to tell the image of Ken, but it's only an image. 

_Oh, God, if I could only see him again._

The image of Ken shifts, breaks up. Joe flails in helpless panic as the darkness seems to implode around him. He is assaulted by light, by a horrific rush of wind and noise.

And the smell of cough drops. 

"Joe-the-Condor," the voice is huge, like a kick to each side of the head at once, and Joe squeezes his eyes shut -- 

_what! wait --_

His _eyes --_

He can open them. But -- but that's all. He blinks helplessly. He cannot see anything, the light is too intense. 

"You are awake," and though this too is massively, concussively loud, Joe can make sense of the words, can hear the Russian accent. 

"You understand me? Blink once yes."

Joe blinks. _Yes._

"And twice no -- do that now, then I know you understand."

He blinks twice. _No._

"Good. Some motor control restored already," and now Joe can make out the outline of the old man speaking to him. "Much work still needing done, but you and I both must rest. A big job. Much more to be done."

Joe stares. How many times should he blink for _What the hell are you talking about?_

_A big job._

_I will make you strong,_ he had said, eternity ago. _Very strong._

_I have postponed your death..._

A dull, crawling pain seems to climb down Joe's spine and radiate out into every part of his body.

_I'm alive?_

He is alive... He has gone through this already; he is going around in circles. He can feel -- see -- hear -- but he still can't move. 

He doesn't know who the old man is. All he knows is that he said they had the same enemy. He said the heart of the enemy was still beating. 

The pain intensifies in Joe's chest, and shrill beeping echoes all around him. The old man swears in Russian and turns away, then back again to reach up toward some IV line Joe can't see. 

_Ken_ , he thinks, as sudden intense relief washes through him, plunging Joe into a deep pale mist as enveloping as the darkness, but with the welcome sweetness of oblivion. _I'm alive._


	19. Chapter 19

Weeks begin passing where Ken does not disappear. A month slips past. Then another. 

Ken begins to smile again. Jim, seeing it at close range, feels both relieved and somehow disturbed. Jim keeps thinking of that dream with the awful bird. What could that be but some bad omen? Yet, it was after that dream that Ken began to ease. It doesn't make sense... 

Well. But it's plain superstition to expect some bad omen. He's been hanging around too much with Miss Lily and Miss Rose. Dreams aren't like that. Dreams are the mind working out clues and fears and chewing over the events of the day. Nothing more.

 _Time to stop thinking about it._ There are other things to think about.

Ken's casual promise of a helicopter ride was not so casual. Jim has not mentioned it again, but Ken remembered. (Jim had been so pleased by the promise that, he told himself, he would not have minded very much if it wasn't kept.)

So when Ken brings it up, asking if tomorrow will be a good day, Jim stares at him for a long moment, trying to work out what he means.

"Good day...?"

"You want to fly, right?" says Ken, with a little smile -- and at that moment, Jim understands that Ken doesn't just fly as a job -- that he actually loves it. This isn't just a dutiful keeping of his word, Ken is looking _forward_ to this. The expression on his face is arresting -- lively and pleased. _Like the sun coming out after long days of rain._ Jim, realizing he is staring, feels his face heat up. But he doesn't look away. Ken can already see that Jim's blushing, so why deny himself the wonderful view?

"Yes," says Jim. "Yes, I do want to." _Especially with you looking like that._

"Good," says Ken. "You won't mind getting up really early then," with a sly smile as Jim groans. "I'm calling in a favor, but we'll have to get in there at about 6."

"Six in the _morning_..." Jim groans, but he doesn't really mind. It's just a way to keep Ken smiling.

"That's right, if you want to go... we'd better get to bed early."

_Why is he looking at me like..._

_Oh!_

Heart pounding, Jim tightens his jaw just in time to keep his mouth from dropping open. Ken, one hand against the kitchen counter, is leaning toward him with a sexy little smile... and dazzlingly blue, luminous bedroom eyes. Looking at _him_ , looking right at _him_ like that...

"Ab... solutely," says Jim, somewhat breathless. 

They don't get very much sleep, but Jim is hardly in the mood to complain about it the next morning. Even getting up slightly before 5 is not so bad -- not really -- not when one is _nuzzled_ awake by Ken. 

"Time to get up... the weather's perfect..."

 _Weather?_ Jim turns sleepily toward the pleasurable sensations, the warmth. "Mmm." 

Teeth lightly grip Jim's earlobe and tug. "Time to get up..."

Jim is more or less awake now, but slow to let it be known. Ken's efforts don't exactly make him want to get _out_ of the bed. He mumbles something about 'few more minutes'.

Ken laughs softly. " _No_ more minutes. Up. Shower. We're flying this morning."

"Nnnn... Just _five_ minutes..."

"If you don't get up right now," warns Ken, "I'm making breakfast."

All right, Jim's _wide_ awake now. The very thought of what Ken would do to his kitchen, let alone to the food... It's probably a joke, but... grumbling, he sits up, and Ken laughs that soft laugh again.

Ken has already been up, Jim sees now: his hair is damp, and he's wearing jeans. He can hear the coffee pot burbling in the kitchen.

Although he's sleepy, Jim's glad to be awake. Coffee and a shower restore most of his wits. He feels good -- in a lazy and satisfied sort of way... Ken's high spirits alone would be reason enough not to waste a minute of this day, but on top of that, there's the reason for those high spirits. They're going to _fly_.

"Where are we going, exactly?" Jim asks as he sets down plates of toast and scrambled eggs. 

Ken names a town just into the next county. Breakfast gets in the way of immediate further questions; they'll have to leave soon if they're going to get there by six. 

Outside, the early morning air is miraculously clean... a different universe entirely from that of the bar and its stale smoky reek. The little apartment complex, which has not been aging gracefully, looks almost cozy in the dawn light. Even the eccentric assortment of obsolete old television aerials seems somehow cute...

"Want to drive?" Jim offers Ken the keys to the old green Buick. 

"Sure."

It feels like a holiday. Jim relaxes in the passenger seat, drinking coffee and looking out the window, and glancing aside from time to time at Ken. They take the highway most of the way, and then switch to what seems like an endless dirt road to nowhere.

Jim trails along behind Ken toward a cluster of big boxy hangar buildings with huge, wide-open doors. There doesn't seem to be anyone here at all. 

"So, um," Jim begins, "who are..."

"Washio!" says someone. 

Both of them stop and turn to face the voice's owner. Jim is puzzled, trying to work out what he had said. _'watch out'...?_

The man walking toward them is about Jim's age, though so suntanned that he's almost leathery. His teeth show white in his face as he says, "Washio! Been a while..."

"Hey, Cole..."

Jim watches him shake hands with Ken.

_Washio?_

"You still flying that 300L?" the man named 'Cole' is asking Ken, who shrugs.

"Not lately," he says, then turns toward Jim. "This is my friend Jim. Jim, this is Cole."

They nod at each other. Cole says to Ken,

"So you want one of the birds? You can take the Bell for about an hour. I'll need her back after that, there's a fair all weekend."

The 'Bell' turns out to be one of those plexiglas-covered helicopters one might see in TV shows about military hospitals. Seeing it at close range, Jim feels his blood surge with excitement -- and some nervousness. This thing is going to leave the earth, with him in it. 

Sitting in the helicopter, belted in to the front left seat, Jim looks furtively at the instruments in the cockpit. He had assumed the controls would be difficult but -- how could anyone keep track of so many dials and displays?

"Here," Ken is handing him a headset. Jim tries to demur at first, thinking it is some kind of gesture to make him feel involved, but Ken insists. "Trust me. It gets loud."

Jim adjusts the headset. He feels rather foolish, adjusting the microphone near his mouth. 

"Can you hear me all right?" says Ken, in his ears. Jim nods.

"Say something so I can hear you," Ken's voice goes on. 

Jim, at a loss for something to say, latches onto the first question he can think of. "What was he calling you?" 

Ken blinks at him. "Washio. That's my name."

"...oh," says Jim, turning red. 

How long has he been sleeping with Ken -- no, not even that, how long have they been having sex and he only learns this today?

This sort of blush is the kind that really is embarrassing. The reason for it... He can hear Tony's voice in the back of his head. _You've been together for MONTHS and you didn't even know...?_

Jim looks away, out his side of the 'copter. He'd like to tell Tony's voice to mind its own business, but it's hard to do that when it's already in his head...

Ken is busy with the details of the incomprehensible cockpit -- checking gauges, flicking switches, apparently understanding everything. 

"OK," says Ken cheerfully in his ears. "Now it's gonna get noisy."

He's not kidding. As the rotors stir to life above and behind, the whole vehicle shudders, and the noise quickly becomes terrific as they get up to speed. 

Jim's embarrassment is abruptly forgotten, driven from his head by excitement. He can feel, shivering around him in his seat, the helicopter's potential to rise. It _wants_ to, from the feel of it. It's like a dream he used to have, where he would have to hold tightly to things on the earth in order to not fly away... except here and now, flying away is all right. Despite Ken's remark about a helicopter being 'not his usual ride', his confidence and ease at the controls are completely reassuring to Jim. If he were not so excited to take the ride and look out at the world, he could _sleep_ here and not worry... 

The helicopter floats up off the ground like a dragonfly. Up -- up -- With nowhere else to put his hands, Jim grips his knees, craning his neck this way and that to look around and down. 

The big hangar buildings, the green car, the dirt road all recede and swing away as the Bell turns, carrying them out over the trees and fields.

Jim finds that he can't stop grinning. It's _wonderful_. The buoyant sensation of flight -- being here with Ken -- a promise, kept --

"You like it?" says Ken's voice in his ear, slightly metallic through the headset.

He turns to look at Ken. Hands steady on the controls, Ken is glancing aside at him, a matching grin on his face, eyes alight with pleasure. 

" _Yes_ ," says Jim, and laughs, because it's such a silly question. Of course he likes it. He _loves_ it.

He has to unclench his hands from his knees, he's gripping them so hard. Back and forth, Jim keeps craning his neck to look everywhere, to see everything he possibly can from this vantage. To take in every minute, missing nothing. And each time he turns, he looks at Ken's profile, drinking in the sight of his face illuminated like this. _What must he look like in his 'usual ride'?_

The junkyard is the most interesting thing they fly over -- the sameness of trees and fields gives way to a whole pattern of interesting shiny shapes. Whoever runs the yard seems very organized -- there are piles of things everywhere, but each pile seems carefully sorted. A field of hubcaps; a crop of bumpers. A couple of old trailers. And, of course, a lot of cars in varying stages of rusting away. 

Not so scenic from the ground, maybe, but from above, Jim finds it fascinating. Someone on the yard is doing some welding, and bright sparks arc, blooming like sudden terrestrial fireworks. 

"We'd better head back now," says Ken's voice in his ear. "He might let us borrow it again sometime if we don't make him wait."

"OK, I'm ready," says Jim, and once again feels his face get hot. Yes, he _is_.

Jim doesn't even remember which direction the helicopter's 'home' is in now, but Ken has no problem finding it. In a few short minutes, the Bell is touching down again on the ground by Cole's hangar. 

Jim pulls off the headset and grins foolishly at Ken. When Ken pulls his own off, his hair (which is very much too long by now) sticks out in a compass-rose of directions from his head. Jim wants to reach out to help smooth it down -- but it might embarrass Ken in front of Cole, to whom Jim was introduced as a 'friend'. 

_Just hold on a little longer. Just till we get home,_ he tells himself. _Not long now..._ Not long till he will be able to touch. But he can't take his eyes off Ken... 

Fortunately, Cole is in a hurry to get into the 'copter and take it to the fair; he exchanges only a few short words with Ken about the machine's performance before getting into it himself and taking it up. Jim watches it rise, then turns to see Ken holding out his car keys to him. 

"Let's go," Ken says. 

His eyes on Jim's face are clear, direct, blue as a tropic sea. Without a word Jim gets into the Buick and starts the engine. 

_Thirty minutes. About thirty minutes getting here, same time to get back, I can wait that long, I can wait that long..._

He tells himself this again and again, trying to make it true. 

Then Ken's hand is on his thigh. 

Jim clenches the steering wheel, eyes wide. Big warm hand, slightly squeezing before it drifts up. 

"Ken?" At least his voice doesn't squeak. (Not _quite_.)

"Yeah...?"

Ulp.

Well, it isn't as though he really had a follow-up question in mind. _You seem to have put your hand on my leg_ would be silly, and _What are you doing_ sounds just plain dumb to his mind's ear. 

So he says, "Thanks." For the ride, he means. For treating him like this. For keeping his promise when he didn't have to.

The laugh this time is still soft, but even more intimate. The low, purring tone makes Jim ache with hunger. _Twenty-eight minutes, just twenty-eight minutes --_

Ken tugs open the button on Jim's jeans and pulls the zipper down. 

The Buick swerves slightly out of its lane. Sweating, Jim yanks the wheel back over.

"I...!" He has no idea what he's trying to say. "Ken!"

"Yeah.....?" Again, the purr. 

"I -- can't -- _drive_ like this!"

"So... pull over."

Ken’s hand slides inside the opening he's made in Jim's jeans and closes around him, fingers warm and callused. Jim yelps, " _Ah!_ " and the Buick swerves again -- off the road and into a field. 

Thankfully, Ken lets go of his handful as the car jostles and bumps over ruts in the dirt. Finally sliding to a sideways stop, Jim slams the car into Park, wide-eyed and panting. 

He turns toward Ken, opening his mouth to say something along the lines of, _What are you thinking??_

Before he can do it, though, Ken makes his thoughts abundantly clear. Jim feels the front of his shirt being gripped, tightening around his armpits, and then he's being yanked forward into a heated, frantic kiss. 

_Oh God..._

Beat after beat: Kissing. Groping. Panting. Gasping. Jim's hands slide up Ken's back inside his shirt: his skin is smooth and hot and alive.

He's never felt such need, such heat, such desire in his life. Well -- once. But that time had been the residue of a dream: Ken's dream of his lost one, and Jim had simply been there, convenient. This time -- this time is his. This heat is for him. 

It makes him burn, catching alight. It makes him shine. 

Ken's grip on his arm is bruising him. He doesn't care. Jim slides his free hand out of Ken's shirt and yanks it up over his head. Ken emerges from it even more disheveled than from the headset. 

_So beautiful._

And yet he's looking at Jim as though Jim were -- well -- not beautiful, of course, but -- _desirable --_

By now they've had sex a lot of times, in various locations in Jim's apartment. But this is daylight, this is out in the world (even if it is in the middle of a field) and yet Ken is looking at him like this. 

They're almost grappling with each other now, pulling clothes off. Jim still has one of his socks on when Ken pulls him over the front seat and into the back. 

Ken is on him, rough and wild, hard and urgent. Biting his neck: Jim cries out, arching. It hurts. But that's not important. It feels _good..._

Ken is so strong. So unbelievably strong. Jim couldn't fight him off if he wanted to, but fortunately that's the last thing he would want to do. His hips rock to meet Ken's thrusting, no matter how hard: impatient to be filled again and again. Someone is growling. There's no way to tell which one. 

" _Ken,_ " he moans, and then Ken is gripping his wrists, holding them roughly up over Jim's head, against the door. 

_Immolation._ Jim goes wild, thrashing and howling, exploding into climax without any warning. He has no control of himself, no awareness of what he is doing: only of what is happening to him. A storm. An inferno. A cataclysm of surrender.

_Jim...?_

As awareness returns, Jim feels Ken touching his face, leaning in close. 

"Mmm...?" He opens his eyes. Where are they? What's that shape on the ceiling? Then he realizes it's the Buick's dome light. Oh -- the car -- !

"Sorry," says Ken softly. "I got... I got carried away. Did I hurt you..."

Jim blinks at him in astonishment. Did he what? 

It seems so absurd that he doesn't know what to say. But Ken keeps looking into his face, worried... ashamed?

"No," says Jim, "well -- a little. But," looking straight up into those eyes, "I liked it."

Reaching up, fingers sliding into that wildly tangled dark hair, he pulls Ken down and kisses him.


	20. Chapter 20

_Oh Christ, not again!_

Tony, sitting at the bar, looks up at Jim and then quickly away before Jim can meet his eye. 

"Hey," says Jim, and even looking away Tony can hear the smile in his voice -- crap, he can practically hear the spring in his step. And, having already glimpsed the fresh bruises on Jim's neck, Tony can't stop seeing them now. 

_Showoff._

"You all right...?" says Jim after a pause; worried already, because Tony didn't answer. Tony grunts and shrugs one shoulder. 

Another pause. He can feel Jim's eyes on him; but if Tony looks up now, Jim's going to be able to see everything he's thinking. He always does. He won't necessarily say anything about it but he'll _know_. 

There are some guys at the end of the bar who were annoying Marty -- oops, Mongke -- during the first shift, and they're annoying Tony now, but at least Jim is kept too busy refilling their drinks to pay attention to him for a couple of minutes.

 _Get your shit together_ , he tells himself. _He's your friend, you told him you were 'happy' for him, so get your shit together!_

But yelling at himself inside his head doesn't work at all. The mental voice starts to become uncomfortably like his ex-wife's voice, and so he switches to yelling at Jim inside his head, in his own voice. 

_There's something the matter with that guy. You of all people ought to be able to see that. He's just gonna hurt you..._

All right. Now he can keep his shit together, maybe. 

He hears Jim laugh. Incredulous, Tony watches as the jerks at the end of the bar flirt with Jim... and Jim laughs!

Since when does Jim _flirt???_

What the hell has happened to everything? 

Jim finally comes back (taking his sweet time about it) and picks up Tony's glass, making him a fresh drink with two fresh wedges of lime. He sets it down on the coaster; Tony nods.

"Seriously," says Jim, voice pitched soft so as not to carry. "What's the matter? Did something happen...?"

_Yeah, something happened. Your vampire boyfriend._

He takes a quick glance up, and in spite of himself, feels a jolt of pleasure at the look of concern on that familiar face. Dark eyes, so deep. Gazing at him.

Tony looks back down at his drink and picks it up, shaking the glass so that the ice cubes clink. 

"Nothing," he says finally, because Jim just keeps waiting for an answer. "Bad day. How was your day off."

"Oh," says Jim, and then there is a pause. Another glance up reveals a blush, eyes cast down and a little smile... Scowling, Tony lifts the glass up and drinks deeply.

"...it was nice," Jim is saying. "I went -- I got to go on a helicopter ride."

"What -- at that fair...?" Fair posters all over town mentioned helicopter rides, and so had his girls, repeatedly. Tony was going to take them today, but they're both down with colds and staying with their mother. 

"No. I mean, it was the same helicopter that was at the fair. But Ken knows the guy who owns it and he let us take it up early in the morning."

 _Oh. So he really is a pilot. Fantastic._ And it makes him grind his teeth to hear Jim saying 'us'.

They've been friends for years now, but it wasn't till recently that Tony had looked across the bar, really _looked_ and saw his friend clearly. Jim's a good guy, a good friend, but he's always seemed kind of -- passive. He's never been girly like some guys get, thank God -- like Georgie, or those guys at the end of the bar. Still, Jim's dad (that old son of a bitch) didn't exactly teach him to stand up for himself, did he. And Jim had been moping around a lot since That Guy disappeared last year. 

But, since That Guy showed up again, Jim's been -- _different_. Of course, it's obvious why. Sex makes people sexy. You don't get your neck sucked on like that without getting it all over, surely. Tony thinks about That Guy -- yes, it is childish not to use his name, but he doesn't have to behave inside his own damn head -- and scowls. He wouldn't have figured Jim to be the type to fall for a pretty face. Anyone who looks like that is just... too good to be true.

_There is something seriously wrong with That Guy._

He thinks darkly about all the gossip he heard about that pretty face... and the rest... last year. He heard Bill describe his performance in excruciating detail. Why would anybody that young, that (oh, all right) attractive let an old creep like Bill _do_ stuff like that to them...?

What kind of freaky things might That Guy be doing to Jim...? _Besides gnawing on him._

 _And what kind of freaky things would YOU like to do to him?_ asks the Cindy voice in his head. 

"So," stabbing at ice cubes with a swizzle stick, "do you know his last name yet?"

He looks up, expecting a No, and ready to make his case for something being wrong with such secrecy; but he can see he's lost this one, as Jim nods curtly. "Yes, I _do._ " But he doesn't volunteer it either.

 _Well, crap._ Tony might at least have been able to make sure the guy isn't a felon or something, or living some kind of double life. 

_Not that I should talk._ A savage stab of guilt as he thinks about the kids and Cindy and his own 'double life', realizing years too late that he was just not going to grow out of it or get over it... being turned on by guys. Since the divorce Cindy has been civil to him, at least, but she doesn't want the kids told the reason... and she's got custody. 

_But my girls are smarter than that. They probably know all about it._

Jim leans forward slightly, looking Tony in the eye. "Something's the matter," he says definitively. "You were supposed to have the kids today, weren't you? What happened? Is everything OK?"

Now he can't look away. Not for anything can Tony look away. His imagination informs him how close they are, how easy it would be if he just stood up and leaned forward, to close those dark, dark eyes with a hot sultry kiss to the mouth. 

"No -- uh -- " At least he can blink; he tries it a few times. "I was supposed to, yeah. Take them to the fair. But they're sick. Colds," he adds before Jim can ask if it's serious. "So Cindy's keeping them."

"Oh," and the intense, questioning look softens as Jim sighs, "too bad." 

Tony takes advantage of the lapse of attention and wrenches his gaze down. "Yeah, I was kind of looking forward to it," he says, which is true, but not at all the reason he's so pissed off. 

"I'm sure you'll get another chance," says Jim, warm with sympathy.

And Tony's stomach gives a funny little jump. 

_Another chance._

"Hope so," says Tony.

 

*** 

He has to go back. 

_I've been selfish. The others..._

The others are grieving too, but in these numb and frozen weeks (no -- _months!_ ) past, Ken has not been able to face sharing that grief. He has not been able to face the idea of Jun's tears, or Jinpei's... and he has not been able to face the idea of Nambu, either. He is not Gatchaman anymore. The Eagle has crash landed. 

But the short pleasure ride in Cole's helicopter reminded Ken of something he had been missing. Flight. Speed. Sky. These things have always acted on Ken like a drug, and now he is feeling the lack of that drug. Ascent, however gentle, has given him a taste for more; and the hunger to fly, like other hungers he had thought never to feel again, has returned to him. 

He has to go back. There is work for him, after all, even without the Ninjatai. There are planes that need test pilots. There's even -- the space program. He might conceivably be able to join the next Mars mission. 

But even as he thinks of this, he remembers zero gravity training, and has to bite his lip as he sees Joe, lithe without his wings, floating...

And there is Jim. Ken imagines leaving Jim behind for a years-long mission in space... the look in Jim's dark eyes...

Perhaps not space, then. But the sky, he might still have the sky. 

He has to go back, but this time, at least, he leaves a note. _Must see family. Back in a few days. K._

 _Family_ \-- the most succinct possible explanation on a very small notepad. They are the closest to one that Ken has left, after all. He can't put them off any longer. He should never have waited so long.

There's just one place he must go first. 

It's not even a graveyard -- but then, it's not really Joe's grave. It's just a marker in a war memorial park. When Ken was here before, they had not yet put the marker stone up. It looks painfully new, and it has so little to do with _Joe_ that it makes Ken ache to look at it. It is a modern sort of affair -- and although he is glad they did not make a Condor effigy, this formless oblong thing seems anticlimactic. He can't help but wonder if it had been intended for some other use, and pressed into service with an appropriate inscription. IN MEMORY OF HEROISM - THE CONDOR - and the date. They didn't even write "Condor _Joe_ ". 

Ken reaches out to touch the words, fingers sliding over and into the incised lines. He has done this before, and not so long ago -- at his father's grave. That too is only a stone, with no body to bury -- but his father's had at least had a picture of his jet inscribed, along with the epitaph. Joe would probably have liked a picture of his car much better than the word HEROISM. 

"Joe," Ken says, and his voice is so hoarse that the word breaks up into parts. He swallows. " _Joe._ " He stands there, head bowed, touching the stone. As he did at Cross Karakoram, Ken closes his eyes and tries, tries with all his strength to feel something, to sense something. To reach... but Joe is long flown, he is not here. 

"Joe," he says softly. "I don't think you can hear me... but..." And despite his knowing that Joe is not here, Ken is at a loss for words, for what to say -- for how to explain. 

"I miss you," Ken says, softly. "I miss you. I'll never stop missing you." He presses his fingers harder against the inscription, so that the edges of the letters dig into his hand. "But I need you to forgive me. I'm alive..." 

A long pause. Breezes sigh through the trees in the park, a long sigh. Not Joe. If that were Joe, it would be a rough gust that yanked at his hair...

"I'm alive," Ken says softly. "And -- I'm -- not alone."

The air is very still now. Ken is only whispering, but his own words fill his ears as he imagines Joe hearing them. 

"His name is Jim. You saw him once. You called him a 'puppy'..." Actually, Joe had also referred to Jim, scathingly, as Ken's _boyfriend_. Now that's come true. 

"He's taken care of me since... since you've been gone. He's a good person. A good man. I guess.... I guess you probably wouldn't like him -- but that wouldn't be his fault." Rueful laugh. "Or yours."

Ken looks up at the sky. There are no signs of supernatural activity. There are no ambiguously shaped clouds. There is no wide-winged bird circling high...

"The war is over," says Ken. "It's over."

He rests his forehead against the cold smooth stone. 

"I wish we could have had another chance."

The wish is as selfish as it is empty, of course. He has already been given another chance. Jim's love is real, it expresses itself tangibly around Ken. If ever he is able to love anyone again, it will be Jim. 

_Another chance._ Well... someday... maybe. He has to live, he knew that all along. Part of his empty anguish had been knowing that if he ever wanted to see Joe again in another life, he could not take his own. That he would just have to keep living on this way. Ken's mother believed this; Ken doesn't know if he really does, but he is human. The slim thread of pathetic hope bars that path. 

He straightens up, his hands falling away from the cold marble. 

"I know you're not here," he says, in a normal speaking tone now. "I know you can't hear me."

The place is so empty. It's not a graveyard, but it may as well be one; the park is intended as a memorial to all of the victims of the war. Joe is the only individual honored -- if you could call it that.

Tears prickle his eyes, but he laughs. "If you could see this big stupid rock they put here for you... you'd say it should be shoved up somebody's ass. You'd say it... uglies up a perfectly good park." 

It feels good to laugh -- even as it hurts. The breeze dies down as though the entire place is shocked at his rudeness. 

Ken reaches out once more, briefly touches his fingertips to the stone.

"Love you," he says simply, then turns away.


	21. Chapter 21

Joe is alive. 

But he's not much use to anybody, least of all himself. 

He can't even move... no more than his eyes. No twitch of fingers, no wiggling of toes, and he's gonna go nuts with it, go _nuts_ with not being able to move or DO anything. He can't even talk to tell the goddamn old man to turn the fucking Mozart off already if he hasn't got anything else. 

Rafael keeps talking about the work that must be done. Joe's willing to WORK, to do ANYTHING other than lie here...! He'd rather be in PAIN than just lie here...!

Soon enough, he gets the pain he wished for. But the old man is pleased -- "Nerve system regaining strength," he says. "Good. Most satisfactory." 

Joe blinks NO, but Rafael isn't paying any attention to _him_ , only to his body and its satisfactory agonies. 

_Ken..._

If he can get up again -- if he can go home again -- if he can only get back to Ken, he can endure it. He can. He _will._

Another chance. That's all Joe wants. _Another chance_. He did _say_ it once, but he didn't show it so well, did he? 

He tries to summon up the image of Ken's face -- as he did again and again inside the limbo of his own head. But this is not that quiet darkness: somehow in this moment, instead of Ken gazing back at him, all he can see is that last moment: Ken turning away... while Joe lies here, helpless, while he and the earth shudder together in their death throes: pain, grinding agony, hot red running... 

Regret... for making smart remarks there at the end, instead of speaking his heart like a man.

_Wait. Come back. Give me..._

_another chance..._

The old man grumbles something in Russian and finally gives Joe something for the pain: sweet relief rushing down the IV line, reaching slowly throughout a body he cannot move, only feel. There are tears in his eyes. 

_I'm alive..._

_Alive, but not doing any kicking._ What will the old man do with him if he can't restore motor control to the rest of Joe's body? What if it goes wrong and he stays like this... _in pain! paralyzed...! forever and fucking ever!_

_NO! NO!_

_**KEN!** _

"What?" Rafael, wide eyed, is staring down into his face. "What... did you say?"

_Say?_

Joe licks his lips, and with a wild burst of joy realizes he CAN lick his lips. His mouth... he's getting his mouth back. Nothing else -- not yet. But God, it's something. Lips, tongue... something he can _control._

Or, try to control. It takes him quite a while to be able to make himself understood. He can't take a deep breath -- not yet. So it comes out very faintly, but at last he manages to sigh,

" _enough... fucking... mozart._ "

***

Jun keeps pacing around the Snack. She can't help it... up and down behind the bar, round and around the dance floor... counting her steps. Counting what's been lost.

One is missing. Two is dead. Three is now in charge of what there is left: Jinpei, who has been looking half dead himself with lack of sleep, and Ryu, torn between clinging close to his own true family, and clinging too close to the Snack.

The war is over. And now...? Now what? It never occurred to her that she wouldn't know what to _do_.

_'Get together with Ken and have a normal girl's life.'_

_But Joe... you must have known that can never possibly happen._

No, it can't... because Ken may see her as family, but he is just not ever going to see her as anything more. And Jun knows it -- she's known it for some time. She guessed long ago. Ken loves _Joe_ \-- or else no one. 

Of course, it didn't stop her from hoping that maybe she was wrong. She can be wrong. And anyway -- _Joe_ would never --

_I didn't see anything. What I saw could have been anything._

No, she didn't see anything _happen_ , nothing like that at all. She only saw -- as she had just come back in from the ladies' room -- the two of them standing together, Joe stepping back, and a _look_ on his face --

It wasn't how close they were. They'd done that for years, leaning against one another, loose-arm-around-the-neck kind of intimacy that she'd rather envied sometimes -- though it did seem to include a lot of fistfights. No, their proximity could have been anything. It was the look.

Jun never saw that look on Joe's face before then. Maybe she didn't read it right. 

And by the time her startled gaze had swung to Ken, he had noticed her and smiled in greeting. 

_Proves nothing. Circumstantial. Highly subjective._

The bells on the door jingle. Jun feels a wave of complete weariness, an inability to deal with customers or deliveries or salesmen or anyone at all, and she turns to the door, opening her mouth to say that they're closed, sorry...

"Hi, Jun," he says.

She stands rooted to the spot, caught in her neurotic pacing in the middle of the dance floor. 

_Ken._ When she saw him last, he had been in birdstyle. There at the ceremony, standing beside him, all she could see of his face had been pale as chalk, his teeth gritted. Jun too had felt howls of grief trapped inside, though her tears had scarcely stopped flowing throughout the weeks of debriefing. 

Then, the ceremony. And then, Ken had disappeared. They'd known he was alive, at least: Hakase has his ways. But if Hakase knew more than that he didn't tell them.

Now, six months after Cross Karakoram, here is Ken. At last.

_He looks so strange in black._

Just a black T-shirt and blue jeans, but these colors are so strange on Ken, he might be from an alternate universe.

_It **is** an alternate universe. It's our world, without Joe in it. _

Her voice is caught in her throat. He blinks at her a little uncertainly, then takes a few steps further into the Snack. 

Jun stands frozen, caught between two irreconcilable forces. The longing to throw herself at Ken and hug him, cry on him -- and a need to release the scream of anger trapped in her throat. _How could you just leave us! Do you think you mourn alone?_

She can't let it out. There is nowhere for it to stop if she does. The anger burns hottest when she thinks of poor Jinpei, abandoned to his own grief and unable to sleep anymore, tormented by dreams of the walking dead. _An army of rotting goons,_ he finally told her, his voice hoarse from screaming. _And Joe aniki._

She stares hard-eyed at Ken. _Did you forget a little boy who looks up to you?_

Jinpei's not really a little boy anymore -- and he has grown up battle hardened. Jun knows it. But that hot anger feels cleaner when it is not for her own sake. And to her he is still a little boy, her little brother by choice. 

"I'm sorry, Jun," says Ken softly, meeting her eyes for a moment before looking down. "I'm sorry I left you to deal with everything by yourself." 

She opens her mouth to retort sharply. He looks back up at her, shoulders braced for it. 

_He's ready to take it, to take whatever I dish out. She realizes it clearly. Maybe he even wants to be punished._

She just feels too tired. Too tired for this. 

"Are you all right?" she asks him.

He blinks. Then after a moment he says.

"I'm... surviving."

She sighs. _Aren't we all._

"I did come by your house, to see if you were OK," she says, "but it looked like you hadn't been there in months."

"I haven't," says Ken, looking around the empty Snack. It's just a way of not meeting her eyes. 

_So where have you been?_

She could ask. Why doesn't she ask? 

He says, "Where's Jinpei?" 

"At a psych appointment."

He stares at her. She feels satisfaction, for a moment, at the way he reacts. _You see? See what happens when you abandon people?_ Then she feels guilty. _ONEECHAN THEY'RE EATING HIM THEY'RE EATING HIM AND HE'S STILL ALIVE!_ His screams have roused her from sleep so many times that she has started to dream his dreams... _HE'S STILL ALIVE!_

"He has nightmares," she says flatly.

"Oh," says Ken, as though to say _everybody has those._

"Bad ones," she says. "He refuses to sleep. And he... he's convinced that... Joe is still alive."

She is tense now, heart thudding with a rush of adrenaline at saying the name. She feels as though she's tossed a bomb down a well and is waiting for the explosion. 

He doesn't flinch: he stands quite still. 

"I thought you should know that before you see him," she says. 

He nods. She drops her gaze away from the expression on his face. 

_I know you loved him. You love him even now._

But she just doesn't really want to _know_ if Joe loved him back.

 

***  
It turns out that the old man is _really_ keen on Mozart. When he hears what Joe is trying to say Rafael gets angry, and goes slamming out of the room muttering in Russian. 

_Well, shit._ Maybe Joe did spend a lot of time getting the word _fucking_ to come out just right, but what else is there for him to do...?

Trust Joe to offend the only person here when he's flat-on-his-back helpless... 

_What will he do?_ Joe's imagination offers a few ideas. Leave him here to rot? Come back with an ax? Worse, come back with some kind of music that's even worse, as a punishment? Though even good music becomes crazy-making with too much repetition. Listen to the White Album enough times and anybody'll turn into Charlie Manson...

The old man comes back. He has a small electronic remote control in his hand; he shows it to Joe. Joe blinks at him, uncertainly. _What is this...?_

The old man presses a button, and Mozart once again fills the room -- louder than before. Joe groans, despite himself. But Rafael smiles grimly. 

"I put this under your hand, so." Joe can feel the shape of it under his fingers. 

_But..._

But he can't _move_ his goddamn fingers. What good does this do?

"You want 'fucking Mozart' turned off, _you_ turn it off."

" _ass... hole_...!"

"You're welcome. Is Merry Christmas present," says Rafael, "few days late."

Then he goes away, and Joe lies there, eyes wide. 

_Christmas?_

It was _spring_ , when he lay dying. 

How long... how long has he _been_ here?


	22. Chapter 22

Tony blinks at Jim in surprise when he comes into the bar on Saturday night.

"What are you doing here?"

Jim shrugs at him a little, "Can't I come here when I'm not working?"

"Of course you can. It's just that you never do."

Jim shrugs again and sits down on a barstool. As he does so, Tony notices a guy sitting a few seats down check Jim out. Then the guy notices Tony glaring and quickly finds something else to look at.

"So where is he now?" asks Tony.

Jim sighs. "He went to visit his family."

Tony leans against the bar with both hands, his eyebrows rising. "He didn't offer to take you along...?"

"No," says Jim.

"Did you ask?"

"I didn't have a chance. He left a note."

"A note??"

Jim shrugs one more time. "Better than nothing."

There are a lot of things Tony could say. There are certainly a lot of things he WANTS to say. 

But he only says, "You want a drink...?"

He's expecting Jim to say 'just a Coke'; he's already reaching for the dispenser when Jim says, "Yeah. Give me... give me one of those that you're always drinking. A Sea Breeze."

"It's not a Sea Breeze. It's a Nor'easter. No grapefruit."

He can see Jim doesn't get the joke. Oh well. Tony has enough sense not to try to explain the ones that don't work. Better to let them go.

He's just astonished that Jim is drinking. A real drink too, not a beer. 

But if he was expecting to see Jim actually get drunk, Tony is disappointed. Jim only asks for one real drink, switching over to Coke after finishing it. 

It's not like he wants Jim to be unhappy enough to get drunk, but... still, it would be interesting to see Jim... out of control. Very interesting. 

It goes from a slow-night-for-a-weekend to a typical rush night -- and for a while, Tony is kept very busy. He keeps expecting to pass by where Jim was sitting to find he's left, but when the busy knot of drinkers clears, Jim is still sitting there. 

Tony feels first a wave of irritation: _only hanging around here because the vampire is away, you're all lonely on your day off,_ then pleasure despite himself, even knowing this, because Jim _is,_ after all, hanging around. And it's getting on toward closing time. 

"I'm hungry," says Jim, plaintively. 

Tony raises his eyebrows. "Sorry, dude. Kitchen closed six years ago." 

Jim snorts. "Good thing too. Seriously. _I'm hungry!_ I want some pizza or something."

Tony hesitates, on the verge of suggesting that he order some. The bar is closing in fifteen minutes. 

"Are you doing anything after work?" says Jim suddenly. "Want to come over and order a pizza? There's a good delivery place near me."

 _You're asking me to come over? To your place?_ He doesn't quite say it aloud, though. He doesn't want Jim to think too much about how it sounds. 

"Yeah, I could do that," says Tony, with a carefully noncommittal tone. "I could eat some pizza."

Tony hates pizza. But he's not gonna say so. There's nothing else in town that delivers. And he wants to go to Jim's place. 

_Away for a few days. Visiting family._

_He's away and you're asking me to come over. Late at night._

He has been to Jim's apartment before, but only twice. This will make the third time. Third time of something is supposed to be lucky. 

On the other hand, maybe Tony will be there and That Guy will come rolling back in, feeling all bitey. Tony imagines trying to choke down pizza he doesn't even like while hanging around the pair of them, as they hang all over one another. 

The thought makes him shudder. But he still wants to go. 

So, when he's locking up the bar and putting the alarm on, he goes out to see Jim sitting in his green Buick, the motor running, waiting patiently for Tony. 

Tony has his own ride, of course, and he really doesn't need to follow Jim -- he knows where he's going, he's been there before. Still, there's something nice about it -- instead of coming out to the empty lot with one car in it, it's nice to have someone waiting for him.

He gives Jim a little wave, and gets in his car. 

In the car, as soon as the heat comes up and makes the interior comfortable, Tony finds himself thinking fixedly about sex as he stares at the Buick's lights up ahead. 

_That's not what he asked you over for. You know that. Don't be a dick._

But, since he is more or less talking to his dick, this is a pointless enjoinder. A waste of unspoken words. 

_A test._ That's what he's got to think of it as. Not that Jim would do something like that on purpose, but it doesn't matter. It's still a test. How he acts is still going to count. 

Jim unlocks the door to his building and lets Tony in. No one's around of course, it's after 2 - but just the same, Tony can't help but keep looking around for the witches. Witches sleep whenever they want to, surely. 

It's not that they're evil, he knows they're friendly with Jim -- but they're definitely witches, and that creeps Tony out.

He met them once before. The blind black lady had said to him in her singsong voice when Jim wasn't in the room, _You smell guilty._ He had realized later that she must have been able to smell pot on his jacket; he had spent a few hours at his stoner friend's house before picking up Jim to give him a ride home, and to the senses of a blind person Tony must have been like a Grateful Dead concert. But at the moment when her face was turned toward him, he had thought she was talking about Cindy. And the other things he had spent the afternoon doing with his stoner friend. And he had remembered that his ring was still in his pocket, that he had not put it back on. It pressed against his hip like it was suddenly alive...

Well, _that_ was just guilt -- his own conscience. But it was still creepy. 

But tonight, there is no sign of either old lady, and Tony follows Jim up the half flight to the second floor of apartments. 

It's dark inside, and he has to stand and wait while Jim goes forward into what to him is a well known space. Then a line of light reaches him, and Tony moves forward toward it. 

The kitchen seems so bright, so homelike after a night tending the dark, smoky bar. Tony moves into it feeling like an intruder. 

Jim already has the phone in his hand. Old fashioned phone, with a rotary dial. "What do you like?" he asks Tony, looking up brightly. "On your pizza." 

"Anything... Nothing," Tony corrects himself, "Just plain." 

Jim just nods, and starts talking to the receiver about the order. Tony turns to look around the kitchen more closely now, eyes trailing not-so-idly over the things magneted to the fridge. There's nothing of interest there, though. No snapshots, no ticket stubs, no notes. The things pinned up here might have been here since Jim's dad was alive.

"There's beer in there," says Jim, hanging up the phone with a _clunk._ "And juice. I don't think there's any soda." 

Tony pulls the fridge open and takes a beer out. "You want one?"

"Yeah, sure."

Tony hands over a bottle and opens his own. It's Japanese beer. To his annoyance, it's very good. The fridge is very cold, there are hints of ice crystals in the beer as he swallows it down.

He sits down at the kitchen table. It feels good to sit down -- to rest his legs and feet. He glances aside at the little old radio, considers turning it on, but then he glances up to see Jim looking at him, and all thought of it leaves his head. 

"Is everything OK?" says Jim, his dark eyes wide and worried and warm, making Tony squirm as they touch him.

"Sure," says Tony, lying. He tips up his bottle, drinking deep. The coldness of the beer arrows down to his belly in an icy line, but once there begins to create heat. 

Jim is frowning at him. Before he can pursue the question Tony heads him off. "How about you? Everything going OK with you and Ken?" He makes himself say the name without any emphasis or hesitation, casual, like it doesn't bother him. 

A shadow flickers across Jim's face. "I told you, he's visiting family."

 _Yeah, I bet._ "I don't mean that. I mean in general. Is it going OK..." It's the last thing he actually wants to know. It suddenly occurs to Tony how much this _sucks!_ Jim has always been the kind of friend he could tell anything to. The kind of friend who can keep secrets. Keeping a secret _from_ him isn't natural. 

Successfully diverted, Jim colors faintly and looks away. "Yes... He's... I can hardly believe it, sometimes," he says in a rush. "I don't know... what he sees in me but..."

"What?" Tony puts down his empty bottle hard enough to rap the table, making Jim jump a little and look back at him. "What do you mean?"

Jim shrugs, looking embarrassed. "Oh, come on."

He's really red now. But so is Tony. Only, Tony is _mad._

"No," he says, "tell me what you mean. You think he's better than you? ...Or does he act like he is?"

"No," says Jim quickly. "No, he doesn't." 

"Then what? What's the big deal? -- Anybody would want you." This last emerges very awkward, like a dive ruined at the last instant by a misstep pushing off. He means it, but he would have liked to say it better than that. And Jim is not listening, anyway. He's getting up for more beer, turning his back on Tony so that Tony can't glimpse his face. 

And that makes him mad, too. He gets up, following Jim around the counter. Jim turns around from the open fridge, holding two more bottles of beer, and shoves one at Tony. Tony takes it automatically, blinking, thrown off what he wanted to say. Jim is busy opening his second beer -- his third drink of the night! -- and tosses the cap into the trash. Tony has thrown his at the same time and they bounce, ricocheting against the side of the trash can. One goes in; one stays out. Story of his life!

"Why are you mad at me?" Jim says softly. "You're the one who asked. 'What's the big deal' you said? He's -- he's _special._ He's out of my league. He doesn't _act_ better, he _is_ better."

Tony stands still, shoulders rigid and teeth gritted with mingled fury and elation. Young and cute does not mean _special!_ But -- on the other hand -- this sounds like Jim isn't comfortable -- _not quite over-the-moon anymore with Superman, eh..._

 _You're being a dick,_ he tells himself. 

He looks at Jim. Only a few feet away. No bar between them. Lit from overhead, a warm yellow light like an oasis in the darkness... the middle of the night. Just the two of them here, in the middle of the night. 

Jim is looking down, head bowed as though he's bracing for Tony to yell at him some more. In this light, at this range, his dark eyelashes stand out distinct, and their shadows on his face from the light overhead make them look longer. They're already long. Jim has beautiful eyes. Beautiful dark eyes you could fall into. 

He takes a step closer -- not even a whole step, a half step really -- just enough to make Jim look up. Yes. Eyes dark as the middle of the night. A _warm_ night. 

"Maybe he is 'special'," says Tony. "But for God's sake, you're in the same league. Get that through your big fat Greek head."

Jim laughs out loud, too startled to suppress it. 

Tony puts his beer bottle blindly down, steps forward and kisses him. 

His hand is still cold from the bottle, and Jim's cheek feels very hot under his fingertips. Jim's mouth tastes like beer -- _so does mine_ \-- and it is slack with shock for the first moment, just long enough for Tony to really fear he might be pushed away. Then Jim seems to -- come alive, as though all the switches are turned full on inside him. There's nothing passive about Jim now. He's a live wire in Tony's arms. 

_Kissing._ Tony likes kissing. It's one of those things where past practice counts, no matter who on. He _knows_ how to kiss. And all the hunger of the past days, all the longing that he has felt at the sight, the very thought of his friend -- he lavishes on Jim's mouth. _This is how I want you. This is how I want to make you feel._

And Jim seems to _get it_ \-- either in his own abrupt, strange way of knowing things, or else just because they are _in tune_ \-- harmonizing. Resonating...

Something is poking him. _Is that a beer bottle or are you just glad to -- Oh._ It _is_ a beer bottle. Tony grabs it away from Jim, tries to put it down. It bumps against the other one, and gets knocked over, from the sound of it. _Shit._ Jim will stop this now to pick it up, and that will be the end of it. 

But he doesn't. Jim has one hand snagged in Tony's shirt, and the kiss continues even through the glugging fizz of escaping beer. Without letting go of him Tony pushes him back -- one step, two, till Jim's back is to the refrigerator.

Now he can press full length against him. Now he can feel for himself that Jim really is glad to see him. Very glad. Just as Tony is. He groans into Jim's mouth as they grind together. 

A shockingly loud, rusty buzz fills the room -- like an alarm -- and Tony leaps back a step, wide eyed. For an instant Jim is looking at him, his dark eyes even darker than they've ever been -- than Tony has ever seen -- face flushed, mouth open, _oh God how sexy you can look..._

Then the moment is broken, the buzzing noise stops and the kitchen is filled with a ringing silence. Now Jim's eyes are closed and he is leaning his head back against the fridge, breathing hard.

"What _is_ that?" gasps Tony, heart hammering. Fire alarm? Chastity belt?

"Doorbell," says Jim faintly. "Pizza."

_Fuck._

He doesn't even _like_ pizza.

***

Jim feels as though his mouth is burned, is still burning. What has he done?? And he knows it's not Tony's fault. He can't even begin to try to blame Tony... Jim is the one who asked him over, and on the lamest possible pretext. 

Jim doesn't even like pizza!

What he'd really wanted -- what he'd started to try to do -- was to tell Tony everything. Tell his friend how he felt both happy and a little afraid, nearly all the time... tell him, maybe, about the dream with the black bird of death. Tony doesn't immediately dismiss things like dreams, even when Jim might want him to. And this -- this is an image that has stayed with him, has come back again and again -- and not just in darkness, not just when he is trying to sleep. He feels as though the bird is not something invented by his dream, just glimpsed in it. And he wanted to tell Tony this. 

But when Tony asked him about Ken it threw Jim off a little. And he didn't begin right. He said the wrong thing (undoubtedly the wrong thing, this time of all times) and Tony got angry, and then --

Yes. Then. Just now. 

_He smells so good_ , flicks in little shocks through Jim's slow-motion brain. _So good, and that kiss, his mouth --_

the hard weight and pressure of his body, the heat of him, and that mouthwatering scent saturating Jim's senses -- a kiss like a story, unfolding and intensifying -- 

Tony wants him, really wants him. And Jim wants --

_What about Ken?_

It stops Jim short, like a cold slap. 

Tending the bar, and having as he does a kind face and a sympathetic nature, Jim hears a great number of unhappy stories about love. But he has always had somewhat less sympathy for those who were simply -- _unfaithful_. They would ruin a lifetime of love for a night's diversion. Jim hates hearing such stories. He doesn't want to be one. 

But still a part of him is standing rapt in the kitchen. A part of him is still against the fridge, gasping. And, well, a certain part of him is still reacting to all this unexpected sexy data.

_Unexpected?_

Wait.

 _Was I hoping he'd do this? Was I hoping to find out for myself? Do I feel -- **safe** leading him on, because I'm too afraid to do anything?_ Ken walks like a ghost...

This thought is an even harder, colder slap, and the rush of shame Jim feels is more than enough to dampen his ardor. Ken _does_ walk like a ghost, but that shouldn't matter. That shouldn't have anything to do with it. Whether Jim could -- _get away with it_ \-- is not supposed to enter into it! He's not supposed to be that sort of person. 

But it's not just a night's diversion he wants with Tony. 

But when he thinks about Ken, about the way he grinned over at Jim in the helicopter, more blue-eyed than ever in the morning sun, all rumpled from his headset... a surge of loyalty and tenderness wells up in his chest, and no, it doesn't matter if he could 'get away with it' or not, because he's not going to do it.

Tony has been paying the pizza guy. When he comes back, holding the box away from him as though it might contain a bomb, Jim dares a glance at Tony's face and finds it closed for business, like the bar. 

Tony clears his throat. 

"Um. I didn't mean..."

 _Didn't mean?_ What didn't he mean? Jim stares at Tony, into his eyes, trying to understand. Trying to _see_ \-- 

Tony goes red, turning away. "Don't _look_ at me like that!"

"What...?"

Tony shoves the box at Jim, who barely manages to catch it in his surprise. 

Without another word Tony grabs his coat off the back of the chair and charges out of the kitchen, back to the front door. Jim hears it slam. He goes on standing there in the middle of the kitchen for several minutes, blinking. 

The warmth of the pizza inside seeps right through the stiff cardboard. So does the grease. 

Slowly, moving as though in a daze, Jim cleans up the kitchen. He mops up the pool of beer from the floor, the counter and the top of the stove. He throws the pizza away unopened in the dumpster out back. He recycles the beer bottles. A waste, all of it.

The whole time, he can feel his mouth burning, stained with heat from that kiss. 

***  
Tony gets out to his car, and as far as starting up the engine. Then he turns it off again. He sits there, shoulder hunched, then punches the steering wheel, hard -- over and over. His fists ache and sting. 

But it doesn't help. 

He's not sorry he did it. No, he's not. But he should have known. Jim might feel _something -- (live wire against him, the heat of his mouth, midnight eyes startled open)_ \-- but it doesn't make any difference. Jim would never _cheat_. He's good at heart.

A real man. Unlike some. 

_Goddammit._

He can't bring himself to leave. He can't go back, but he can't leave. And so he falls asleep at last, in his car -- which does a lot to cool him down as well as sober him up. He creaks awake at dawn, wondering where the hell he is. 

Tony rolls down the window, and very cold air wakes him all the way up at once. He rubs his face, yawning and wincing. There's the scent of coffee in the air, a hint of warmth carried on the frigid wind. Getting out of the car, he follows the scent to the little corner grocery next to the apartment building. 

He comes out of it again with two large cups warming his hands, and a small paper bag clutched in his teeth. A peace offering. An excuse to return. He'll probably wake Jim up, but at least he brought fresh donuts. 

A quick glance shows the hallways still empty -- a clear coast with no sign of the witches. Good, a good omen. Maybe Jim will be awake already. Maybe he didn't sleep so well either. 

He has to transfer one of the coffees to the other hand, half clutched against his chest, to be able to ring the doorbell. From inside he can hear that big rusty buzzing noise -- and then, ah! Jim is awake already, thank God. Tony didn't hear him walk toward the door, but it's opening -- 

"Hey," says Tony. "I -- " Then he stops short as a colder breeze than any outside blows right down his neck.

"Hello," says Ken, blinking at Tony in mild surprise.


	23. Chapter 23

Joe keeps waiting for The Moment to happen, like the moment when he spoke, sudden access to an important part of himself -- he waits for That Moment to happen with his hands. Any minute now!

But he keeps waiting.

Even when he gets a _little_ bit of movement in his fingers -- enough, thank God, to turn the goddamn music _off_ \-- he cannot reliably control them, despite long hours of furious effort. They twitch spastically when he tries, and sometimes when he doesn't.

The old man mutters about it. Sometimes Joe wishes he'd learned Russian, and sometimes he's glad he didn't. _Jun speaks it. Jinpei too, probably just picked it up listening to Jun practice. And Ryu told me a story that time about the drunk Russian sailor..._

It hits him so hard, Joe can almost feel an impact in his gut, an blow from an unseen fist. A wave of homesickness; a wave of awful lonely longing for his family and his home. The others. And Ken. 

(Ken's face, smiling that smile just for him. It looked like a regular smile to everybody else, but there was something extra in it when he aimed it at Joe. The heat of Ken's body, hard and lithe against him. Ken in battle, perfect with ferocity, striking like lightning. They had been _attuned_ , perfectly. All the fears about fraternization had been stupid, it didn't diminish them at all, they were _better_ \-- )

_Ken, where are you?_

(Ken, asleep against Joe's shoulder after a long night playing spear tackle up and down the bed, snuggled up and looking so goddamn cute that Joe had to shut his eyes and stop looking. 

Then he opened them again. )

_Ken, do you know where I am?_

_Ken..._

Joe closes his eyes. _oh God Ken, I wish you were here..._

But -- not when Joe is like this. Not helpless on his back, no good to anyone... 

Joe drifts into a little fantasy about Ken coming into the room and leaning down to kiss him to life... only it takes more than a kiss. Stroking and licking and nibbling, Ken would wake his entire body up... murmuring things in that sexy voice. _Come on, Joe... show me... show me how much you want it..._

_I would, I want to --_

But he can't. Ken is not here, and even if he were, Joe is... not what he used to be. Maybe he'll never be like he was again.

Rafael had said he'd make Joe _strong_ , but he didn't say anything about _complete_. 

_I didn't get my balls shot off. Did I?_

He doesn't remember that. He doesn't think so.

_But do I still have everything?_

How could he not have thought about this before? A cold prickle of sweat coats him. He can hear the faint _beep beep beep_ of his heart speeding up. He waits for Rafael to come and see what's happening; but apparently the old man is sleeping, or simply elsewhere, and maybe Joe's not in bad enough shape for a real alarm to fetch him. 

And so he's alone with the question. _Are you a man, or a mech?_

He can't move his arm. But he can move his fingers. A little. And he can -- he's gonna -- let them do the walking, their slow and spastic way. Because he has to know. He has to find out. If what he finds out is bad, he wants to find it out for himself. Not Rafael. Rafael is in control of everything.

There's a lot more sweat, and the steady quick rhythm of the beep. In one way this is easier than trying to manipulate the damn finicky little music remote -- and in another, it's a lot harder, because hauling the dead weight of his arm along is a little more than his special-olympics fingers can handle at this point in their career. Progress, if you could call it progress, is so painfully slow, it's like waiting for tectonic plates to shift. 

_Well, but lately stuff like that doesn't take so long, does it. Move. Go. Move._

It's kind of a mission. 

The major difficulty is having to move _up_ his leg. He remembers crawling up the stairs in the Cross Karakoram base. That had been bad. Very bad. But he had felt this crazy energy -- Katse's drugs, he supposes. He doesn't have anything like that now. Not that he wanted it. God, imagine being on this table now, and standing over him, instead of the old camphor-smelling man, _Katse_ \-- 

More sweat. More beeping. And an inch of progress. 

Joe's teeth are gritted, his eyes shut. This awful journey, that he can never tell anyone about, is one of the most terrifying things he's ever experienced. And he had one perfect shitstorm of a life before this. 

He just has to find out if it's still life as he knows it. 

What will he do? What will he do if he's -- all fucked up? If something's -- wrong?

_I don't know. Shut up. I don't know. Move. Move._

If Ken were here -- if he were not alone, if Ken were here, Ken would know to tell him before he had to ask. Ken would know to tell him either way. _You're all right, Joe_ , or else -- or else -- what would Ken say? _There's some bad news_... Hah.

By the time his hand is on his belly, Joe is so tired he almost lets it slide back. But his eyes fly wide open and he bites the inside of his cheek, hard -- _no! all that work!_

It should be easier now, flat surface, home stretch. But dread slows him down as much as fatigue. His heart rate has slowed down a bit, and now he feels as tired as though he's been running across half the earth. His eyes flick back and forth over the ceiling, as though searching for instructions there. 

Then his fingers bump into something, and he catches his breath in a gasp. 

_That's me. That's mine. I felt that..._

Yes. Whether it's from having reassured himself that it's there, or because the effort of reaching down did something for him, or both -- he can feel it, now. Relief washes through him. And, though very far away at the moment, pleasure of touch registers too. Just a little. 

_You're all right, Joe._

He falls asleep with a sigh.

Later, Rafael's voice wakes him. Joe blinks up groggily, remembering a heartbeat late that he still has his hand on his dick.

"Well. I _suppose_ that is good sign," the old man says, and leaves it at that.


	24. Chapter 24

It's kind of like puberty. Discovering your dick all over again. Now that he knows it's there, Joe feels much more interested in sex -- and by extension, life. His control of his hands remains sporadic for a while. But for that at least, it doesn't take much at all. Lying here thinking about sex, by the time he gets his hand down there it takes only a little nudge to set him off. 

He tries thinking about women, occasionally. For variety. But even when he starts out with one, his thoughts soon turn to Ken, the most vivid memories, the heat still lingering... 

_Ken's mouth wrapped around my cock. Ah, suck me. Suck me..._

_Ken's body leaning back, his cock standing straight up and I can look down and see mine going into him, ah, ah God Ken yes..._

_Yes..._

Ken would say things when they were fucking. Joe made a lot of sounds, a lot of noise -- but somehow he would never talk... In his mind now, he talks. He says,

_So good. So good, you feel so good, you're mine, all mine..._

Ken could say things that made him hard instantly even while they scared the crap out of him.

Joe had started it. He asked... he can't remember why now... he asked _what do you want? more than anything?_

Ken rolled onto his side and looked at Joe with those blue eyes and said, _I want to feel you come... from inside you._

And Joe hadn't known what to say to that because it came at him from out of nowhere, and he was breathing hard and his face was hot and tight around his eyes. Spine crumpled up in secret fear, _not that, not me! no way!_

But Joe was hard. His dick stood up to be counted, one vote for _fuck Joe._

Blue eyes filling his vision. _Will you let me?_

_(Joe is half dreaming now, back in the moment. His fingers make slow circles on his belly.)_

Ken doesn't touch, doesn't crowd, lets him think. Just the question. 

Joe knows he doesn't have to. He knows that a single word will get him off this hook. _No_ , or if he's feeling generous _Sorry_ , and Ken will never ask again. 

But Joe _did_ ask, _what do you want more than anything_. And Joe remembers -- however vaguely on some of the details, he remembers -- how he was that first time. He did not exactly _ask_ anything then. Wasn't exactly -- whaddyacallit -- _considerate._ Ken is not talking about making anyone squeal like a pig. Ken is talking about being nice to him. Sort of. 

Doesn't he owe something to Ken? 

Doesn't Ken seem to enjoy it like crazy? Arching and groaning and begging for more --

_But I'm not like that, I'm not --_

Even as he thinks this thought the blue eyes drop their compelling contact, like a searchlight moving away. Ken has realized -- _assumed_ \-- that the answer is No and is swallowing disappointment. 

Ken could have said, _Are you scared?_ Joe would have deserved it. Also, it would be true. 

Ken could have pointed out something about fairness. Also true, but... 

Ken opens his mouth, draws in a breath, and Joe knows exactly what he is going to say, _Never mind_ , and then something after that to try to change the subject, but it's the _never mind_ that Joe must stop, like a ticking bomb counting down. Joe leans in to kiss his open mouth, catch the words before they are said. If it's ever going to be Yes then it has to be now, because he cannot -- ever -- _speak the words_ to offer it. He can only answer _now._

_Will you let me?_

_Yeah._

The rare situation when he could have just listened to his dick in the first place. 

Ken's surprised. Joe can tell. And he probably wants to ask _are you sure_ or something like that, but he'd better not. Joe is not _talking_ about it. 

Best to just keep his mouth busy for a while. Best to drink in heat from Ken's mouth and Ken's skin and not think too much about --

" _Ohhh_ ," because Ken is biting at the side of his neck, his cock sliding against Joe's cock and it's like any other time, because of the _need_ \-- but it's _not_ like any other time, because of the fear. 

_(he can feel it now, trembling, heart pounding, but so excited he's dripping onto his belly, his fingers smear it over his skin)_

It's a far cry from their other first time. A _bed_. No chains, no crazy drugs, no peeping toms or cosplay hookers. _Lube_ , for God's sake. And someone who has some idea of what he's doing, at least from the other side of it. Joe knows what to do _now_ , but he must have been horrible that first time. 

_What would have happened if they'd decided to drug him instead of me?_

Ken would probably _still_ have been better at it... 

"Joe," Ken breathes in his ear, in That Voice, that voice that only Joe gets to hear, the voice that belongs to Joe alone; only it's trembling a little now.

Or maybe that's just himself. It's hard to say.

Ken shifts and slides down and Joe tenses, instinctively prepared for assault. When the hot mouth closes around his cock he cries out in surprise, _"uh!"_

He's not as surprised when Ken lifts his head and moves further down. But the sensation, hot and wet and secret, of Ken's tongue on his ass makes Joe clutch at the bed, panting in astonishment. _oh God he's -- that's --_ His back arches. He spreads his legs -- wider -- so Ken can do that _more._

_oh Christ that feels so... fucking... good...!_

He expects there to be an interruption at some point, for Ken to pause to reach over to the bedside table. But Ken somehow got hold of it when Joe wasn't paying attention -- the white shadow slipping unseen into the drawer for the lube. And so Joe doesn't realize it for a few seconds, when Ken is replacing his wicked tongue with a slick finger, slipping in...

He clenches up tight, reflexively. _Hey!_ But even as he's drawing breath, Ken has leaned down again to suck one of Joe's balls into his mouth, and Joe groans...

The finger slides deeper into him, and as various muscles begin to warm to the idea, Joe gets the sensation that Ken is looking at him -- and opens his eyes. Sure enough, Ken's eyes are like searchlights again, examining his response, because even now, he knows perfectly well that Ken would stop if he thought Joe did not like this. 

That being a major difference between them. 

But even though, even now, he's still not completely sure -- there is no question of backing out of it, there's no way he's letting Ken down now...

The deep hot in-out sensation of Ken's -- is that finger or _fingers?_ \-- is quickly making Joe's selfless rationale sound very stupid and hypocritical. Eyes fixed on Ken's, he lifts his hips and pushes back, _more..._

After a delicious minute or so of this Ken slides his fingers free, and then it's the moment of truth, payback time. Ken's cock feels like a huge blunt instrument nudging at him. 

"Open your eyes, Joe."

When did he shut them? 

" _Joe._ Open your eyes and look at me."

It takes him a few seconds to do it. When he does open them, he sees Ken, face flushed, eyes dark, staring down at Joe in a way that makes him feel hot -- _hotter_ \-- all over his skin. 

"Look at me while I fuck you," says Ken, and even as Joe's mouth is dropping open in amazement to hear Ken say such a thing -- even as a fresh pulse of lust throbs in the base of Joe's cock to hear it -- Ken is sliding forward with that big hot blunt instrument, pushing it in, blue eyes blazing. 

_oh God oh God._

For a minute or two, it hurts. For a minute or two, Joe must fix his attention on other things: the intensity of Ken's eyes on him, the pain of biting his own lower lip -- on the effort of uncramping his clenched feet. There are no words. The sound of mingled breathing, loud and harsh, is all there is to say.

Ken moves; and for the first few strokes Joe is sweating, sure that this is just not possible, Ken's too big, Joe just can't -- 

A shiver goes up his body -- originating from where Ken penetrates him, a hot melting like what he felt at first with Ken's fingers -- only _more_. Oh... God... he is all the way inside. Ken is inside him. All the way. 

_oh God..._

His fear of this act has never had anything to do with pain. It is the _pleasure_ he was afraid of. It is _this_ \-- feeling it, and loving it, and wanting it never to stop. 

_Fuck me!_

Whatever it means about him -- 

_Fuck me!_

\-- whatever it means, whatever that makes Joe -- 

" _Fuck me!_ "

oh Christ, he said it aloud.

But oh Christ, look what his having said it does to _Ken._

And oh, what Ken's doing to him... on top of him, inside him, _fucking_ him, good and hard... good and full. He moans, ragged and continuous, unable to stop.

 _This_ is why Ken gasps for more when Joe fucks him, clutches at Joe's back: Because it feels so good, so _good_ so be filled and filled and filled, hard and fast, on and on and on... It is _good_ , whatever that means about Joe -- his nose and mouth filled with the scent of Ken's skin, and his eyes drunk on the sight of Ken going wild and visibly struggling not to come...

_I want to feel you come from inside you._

He'll get that wish. But it's a race as to who can't stop himself from finishing first. 

Joe breaks eye contact to glance down, leading Ken's eye to Joe's hand as he wraps it around his cock. Ken catches his breath. Then looks back up at Joe, biting his lip. 

"Joe," he whispers. And in this moment he is more beautiful than ever. Eagle. Warrior. A fierce lover, his equal in all ways. No one else in the world could touch him like this. No one. 

Joe strokes his cock, panting. He wants to say something else, but those two prosaic words _fuck me_ did not exactly open up any further floodgates of expression. The things he can think of to say -- the sort of things Ken deserves to hear are not words that can fit in Joe's mouth. 

Then Ken's hand, warm and callused, wraps around his, enveloping Joe's cock. Joe finds one more word after all, somewhere inside himself. 

"Yes," he says.

His voice is all raspy because his mouth is dry from moaning, and he can't think anymore because of the combined pressure of their hands on him, urging his cock to make the leap, and Ken's thick glowing-hot shaft, pistoning, stretching and stroking and striking a balance that is going to make Joe come -- _oh -- God_ \-- NOW right NOW! 

" _Look at me,_ " gasps Ken, and so Joe opens his eyes again in time to see the wonder lighting Ken's face, the erotic beauty of an angel helplessly writhing... completely _his_ , however it might look to the contrary. He can feel, deep and distant, a hot throbbing separate from his own spasms. Ken, coming inside him, even as Joe's come spatters his belly and both of their hands. 

_(and he remembers that feeling, in the here and now; remembers the look on Ken's face and the throbbing inside him and he comes -- gasping at the hot shock of the spurts against his sensitive palm.)_

Joe looks into his eyes, and just for a moment thinks of the things Ken deserves to hear. Whether Ken can read any of them there he doesn't know. It's not a long look. Ken closes his eyes, puts his head down against Joe's shoulder. Joe puts his arm around Ken and pulls him down to lie all the way down on top of him. When he does, Joe can feel him shaking. 

"Love you," Ken whispers in his ear. 

Joe pulls a blanket over Ken's shivering back and closes his eyes.


	25. Chapter 25

Jim crawls into bed and curls up, shaking.

_What did I do?_

Again and again his hand steals up to cover his mouth, as though to contain the heat still throbbing there. Again and again he catches himself at it, and pulls his hand away -- willing the heat to hurry up and dissipate already. Panic and desire and guilt and beer form an undulating knot in his belly, and he's never, never going to get to sleep...  
 _  
What did I **do??**_

He can't get comfortable. There's no way to relax. He can't think about what happened but he can't think about anything else either -- and he'll never sleep, he'll lie awake like this forever, touching his mouth, pulling his hand away...

_Anybody would want you._

_Oh yeah... since when?_

No. He can't think about this, he doesn't want to do this to Ken... Ken... Ken, who is away, and who knows when he will come back, for all Jim knows he could have come back while Tony was here and been in the room, _sitting at the table and **staring like the dead** , like that time --  
_  
Jim makes a strangled sound in his throat and turns over violently, seeking comfort -- or less _dis_ comfort, anyway. His heart is pounding. He will never get to sleep.

Never...

_It is a black and white photograph, cracked around the edges._

_And yet it is not a photograph at all, but a frame stood up in the grass at some outdoor show -- a tiny carnival, Jim sees as he looks around._

_Then he looks back through the frame, and goes cold with fear._

_Miss Lily, the young Miss Lily, with terrible staring eyes, her arms dramatically outstretched. On each gauntleted wrist... a huge bird of prey, wings spread. On Miss Lily's right wrist is an eagle, the most beautiful eagle in the world._

_On her left wrist... is the hideous, tattered black bird, death bird with metal bones, **oh God no!** But Jim can't move, he is frozen there, shaking with terror, gripping the sides of the frame -- that, **that** was the eagle's mate?_

_Somewhere beyond, a mad harlequin in a purple coat lights the rockets, and Jim wrenches his eyes to Miss Lily's face, Miss Lily **look out, look out!**_

_She smiles sadly. **Almost time to wake up, James.**_

_He shakes his head. Why won't she understand! **Look out! Look** \--_

_Then the fireworks explode, white flash that obliterates all else. But there is no sound. No boom. No screams. No sound --_

_Then --_

_\-- A sound._ At the window! The window of his bedroom -- !

Jim twists around, silently gasping, spine going cold as he stares toward the window. A cluster of dark shapes -- moving -- He can't understand, _what is he looking at?_

Birds. There are birds at the window.

_Are they -- real?_

The birds of his dream are horribly present in his mind. Is he still dreaming, is he in a puzzle-box nightmare where he only thinks he is awake?

A low sound just outside the window, like a cough, or a laugh. No, no dreams -- these birds _are_ real, sitting on the windowsill outside, on the other side of the glass. Ordinary. They are crows.

_How many?_

He can't see well. And he does not want to go closer. He doesn't want to move...

One. Two.  
Three.  
Four.  
Five. Six...

And even as he watches, dark wings descend and one more crow crams itself onto the crowded sill.

Seven.

It is one too many. They all begin to fight and screech, and wings batter the window, a horrific noise peppered with _caw, caw_ in syncopation. So loud it must surely wake the entire world up. Wake up the _dead_...

Then they are gone, all seven of them -- scattering away.

Miss Lily told it to him long ago, he can hear her now as though she speaks in his ear,

_One is sorrow, two is mirth,  
Three's a wedding, four's a birth,  
Five is silver, six is gold,  
Seven's a secret never to be told._

Jim clutches the bed as though he is afraid he might fly up too. His heart is pounding.

"Jim?" calls Ken softly from down the hallway. "I'm home..."

_Home._

Jim puts his head down, closes his eyes and pretends to be sleeping.

***

"Hello," says Ken, blinking in mild surprise at the man who had knocked on Jim's door.

It's the other guy from the bar. The bartender that works on Saturday nights. Toby? No, Tony. Jim has mentioned him more than once; they're friends.

Ken wonders what _friends_ means to other people. His best friend... Well. There can be only one of those.

"Jim is in the shower," says Ken. "Do you want to come in...? I'll tell him you're here."

Tony looks away. "Um. No. I... No. Here..."

He thrusts two coffees and a small paper sack at Ken. Ken accepts them gingerly, eyebrows raised.

"Wanted Jim's advice about something," Tony mutters, "but I'm too tired. I'll ask him at work. You guys have those." Abruptly he turns away toward the stairs.

"OK," Ken blinks at the man's already retreating back. "Um, thanks. I'll tell him."

Ken closes the door with his foot and carries the unexpected breakfast to the kitchen table. Fresh donuts; one doesn't have to open the bag to know, the aroma of yeast and sugar wafts right through the paper.

_Joe would have liked these._

Such thoughts have become like convulsions, sporadic but threatening -- and Ken grits his teeth, holding hard against it, trying to ride it out. The present. He must live here, in the present.

He aches from the effort, but by the time Jim is turning the shower off, Ken has regained his control, pushed his mind _forward_.

Jim's head leans out of the bathroom door, partially obscured by a towel as he rubs his hair. "Was that Miss Rose?"

"No," says Ken, "Tony."

Jim looks blank. Maybe he knows more than one 'Tony'.

"From the bar," Ken clarifies. "He brought coffee and donuts -- "

"He's _here?_ "

"No, said he was too tired to wait for you. And that he'd see you at work."

"Oh," says Jim.

His head disappears back into the bathroom.

Ken opens the paper bag, pulls out a donut and devours it in four bites. He is licking his sugary fingers as Jim comes back down the hall in his bathrobe, the floorboards squeaking loudly under his bare feet.

"Those smell good," says Jim, picking up one of the coffees and nodding at the bag.

"They are." Ken picks up the other cup. "Better eat one before I get them all."

Jim takes a donut and looks at it.

"How... was your family?"

Ken, though he has been expecting the question, does not know how to answer it. Jun tried to prepare him, but Jinpei's suffering had exceeded the limits of his imagination. He had had no idea. And his own lack of balance was no help to Jinpei, who became so upset that he had to be sedated.

"No, never mind. I'm sorry I asked," Jim sighs. "I wouldn't want to talk about my family either." He puts the donut down.

Jim pulls the lid off his cup of coffee and goes to the fridge for milk. He is just beginning to pour when the sound of urgent banging on the door startles them both. A surge of sudden adrenaline flashes through Ken's body, the response to _emergency_ long ingrained. Even as Jim's startled eyes look up Ken is moving swiftly to the door; he yanks it open to find -

The blind woman. _The seer_. Ken flinches back, _what is she doing here_ -

Jim is pushing past him now, taking the old lady's arm. "Miss Lily! What are you - What's happened? Are you all right?"

"Rose," gasps Miss Lily, and there is nothing spooky about her now, no mysterious pronouncements, just a wholly human fear he knows all too well, "There's something the matter with Rose!"

When the ambulance comes for the unconscious Miss Rose, a hastily-dressed Jim goes with her in it. "Keep Miss Lily here, OK," Jim says before he leaves, "They don't have a phone. I'll call here as soon as I know anything."

It is a strange moment for Ken, a looking-glass moment - he is not the one in charge, not the one in motion, not the one doing things to help. Jim even gives him a hasty, absent minded kiss goodbye as he grabs his coat, which makes Ken feel awkward enough to blush - but no one is there to see it, because the old lady cannot see.

Once Jim has gone Ken approaches Miss Lily, cautiously. "Um. Miss Lily. Would you like to sit? There's a chair near a phone in the living room."

"Yes, please. Yes. I would like to sit down now."

Settled into the creaking old recliner, Miss Lily closes her eyes. Looking at her here, out of her element, without her animals or her roommate or her poise, Ken sees how fragile she is, how old.

"Is there anything I can get for you?" he asks her, thinking of food or drink. Maybe a blanket.

"Yes, please," she says. "I would very much like to have my cat here with me. It would give me comfort, and he's not used to being alone with the birds, either."

"All right," though the thought of going into that strange aviary again makes the donut in Ken's stomach turn leaden.

"You will find the door unlocked," she says softly, eyes still closed. "The cat will follow you to me, you won't have to carry him."

All doors are unlocked to Ken, but he never says so.

"And the birds will respect you, of course."

There it is again; that unnerving suggestion of her _knowing_. But he is not going to ask, and he goes to get her cat before she can go on.

As she said, the cat is waiting by the door (as far as possible from the silently watching birds; he feels a surge of fellow-feeling for it) and follows Ken back without any urging.

Miss Lily regains some of her poise with the white cat in her lap, but she keeps hugging it close until, annoyed, it hops down and begins washing itself all over.

"I should know better," she sighs. "He doesn't much like petting when he's in my lap; but I did hope he would indulge me. I am... worried about Rose."

"I understand," says Ken, and because he does understand, he does not say the kind of thing Jim would say. Ken is _not_ sure 'everything will be all right,' nor that Miss Lily 'shouldn't worry.'

"Would you -- ?" she starts to say, then stops her hands worrying each other purposelessly in her lap.

"What is it?"

"I'm sorry to ask you, because I know you are -- unsure of me,"

_Was she about to say 'afraid?'_

"but -- could you..."

"What, Miss Lily?"

"Hold my hand. Until -- the phone rings. Please?"

"Yes, of course," he says at once, and kneeling down beside her, Ken gently takes her hand to cradle it in his.

She is silent for several minutes. Then she says, "You are kind. Not simply polite. Genuinely kind. You have been good for James in many ways. His father abused him, you know. I doubt he's told you."

"No. He hasn't." Ken tries not to think about his own father.

"His father killed himself here in this apartment," Miss Lily says. "I doubt he's told you that either."

The cat jumps back into Miss Lily's lap and sits down, studiously avoiding the pair of clasped hands in its personal space.

"Why are you telling me these things, Miss Lily?" Ken asks. "Shouldn't Jim tell me himself if he wants me to know?"

"They aren't secrets, exactly," says Miss Lily. "They are things which would be painful for James to talk about, yet they are things his lover ought to know. I am a meddling friend," and she gave him a little smile which, tight and small though it was with worry for Rose, was still enchanting. "I love James dearly. He has his own gifts, greater than he realizes."

They lapse once more into silence.

"Miss Lily?"

"Yes, dear boy?"

"What... happened to your eagle?"

The cat turns to look into his face. Miss Lily's hand tightens on his, surprisingly strong.

"A veiled question. You are asking, in truth, what happened to another eagle's mate."

Ken does not answer.

"The phone is about to ring," says Miss Lily, and releases Ken's hand to rest her own, trembling, on the back of the cat.

And the phone does ring. Ken tries not to jump. It is Jim, calling from the hospital. Miss Rose is going to be all right. Ken gives the phone to Miss Lily so that she can get the report directly from Jim. Her relief is touching. When she gives the receiver back to Ken, and he has hung it up, she reaches out to take his hand once more.

"A veiled question can only have a veiled answer," she says, "veiled even to me. My eagle wasted away and died of grief. -- I cannot see a body. I cannot be sure. But you have already learned not to waste away, I think, thanks to James."

Ken blushes, looking down.

"You sought him out," says the blind woman. "You wanted to live. Trust that."

She releases his hand and leans back, sighing. "Would you be so good as to make some tea? I would find it very soothing now. I am so glad Rose will be all right."

Ken goes at once to obey. It takes him some minutes to produce a cup of tea, and by the time he comes back with it, he finds Miss Lily and her cat both fast asleep in the chair.

**TO BE CONTINUED**

**PART TWENTY-SIX**

Jim drives slowly back from the hospital and wonders if he is living some other life all of a sudden. And it's not because anything _momentous_ has happened. Rose is not in danger, her illness will be easy to treat, though she must stay overnight. There were no dramatic moments or high speed chases or heartbreaking decisions to be made; but he stuck close by Rose, lying straight faced to the nurses that he is her nephew and only family. He never even planned to say this, it just came out of his mouth. He simply has no intention of being excluded when there is no one else to deal with this.

And perhaps that is the difference he feels; but that's not all. Jim also had to deal with a doctor who wasn't listening to what he knew of Rose's history, and so he had to stand half in the man's way, tightening his voice so that the doctor not only listened to him, but started deferring to him, and gave Jim a respectful nod before leaving. This... has never happened to Jim before in his life.

But then, he _cares_ about Miss Rose and about Miss Lily, and he'd had no choice but to step up for her, for them - what else was there to do? He just hadn't known he could do it like that.

Only now, away from the hospital, in the car, does he think about Tony; and though Jim blushes again at the memory of the kiss he takes a deep breath and then lets it out. What should he _do_ about it besides not doing it again? Should he tell Ken, and apologize? Would he want to know, if Ken had done such a thing himself?  
 _  
Would he even be bothered by it if I told him? Maybe... he just wouldn't care._

There are a lot of good reasons to just not mention it. But that doesn't make it right.

If Jim were behind the bar at this moment, giving advice to this person that he seems to be now, he would say, Tell him, and don't wait; secrets only get worse as they age.

These are the thoughts in his mind when he goes into his apartment, but they are derailed somewhat by the sight of Miss Lily and her cat asleep in the old recliner. He'd never seen either of the sisters asleep before today, but now he has seen both.

Ken has been sitting beside her on the floor on folded knees, watching over her, it seems. He rises silently, with no trace of stiffness from sitting so long, though he does take a little stretch of the arms that is... diverting to see. Jim can't help blushing but he doesn't look away. He smiles at Ken.

Ken's eyes flick to Miss Lily, and they go into the kitchen to talk softly.

"She's okay, I talked to her, she told me to go home already," Jim whispers with a wry smile. "Once they got her the right medication things went fine. I should be able to pick her up tomorrow morning."

"That's good," murmurs Ken. "We can tell her when she wakes up," with a gesture of the head to mean Miss Lily down the hall.

"Yes," and then Jim finds himself pulling Ken by the front of his shirt to collide abruptly in a kiss: a single kiss, but a long, slow, hot dance of a kiss that goes on and on. Ken is surprised for a moment (perhaps because Miss Lily is in the apartment), but soon melts and flows under the heat of this touch and when Jim pulls back they are both panting.

Jim's eyes flick toward the bedroom, _Let's go_ ; Ken's flick toward the living room, _But_...

 _Now_. Jim doesn't even need to move his head to communicate this. He just _looks_ at Ken and lets it burn in his eyes, lets it show.

And just like that, Ken grins conspiratorially at him and silently races for the bedroom. Jim has to go more slowly, lest the floorboards make too much noise. By the time he gets there, Ken is more than half naked. Jim yanks his own shirt off as he enters the room, then he closes the door as quietly as possible before going to Ken and finishing the job of stripping them both.

There's no discussion about who wants what. It's implicit in every touch. Jim is surging with energy and desire and Ken has long since caught that hunger, reflects it back to him in waves. It is Jim who tips Ken back across his bed, licking and biting and, eventually, sucking him till Ken has to cover his own mouth with his hands to keep from crying out. It is Jim who parts Ken's thighs and reaches down and pushes lube-slicked fingers into him and Jim who then moves to take their place. Jim who moves on and into that tight glorious heat till he has to lean down and muffle Ken's mouth with kisses. They rock together and apart, urgently striving, and trying so hard to be quiet.

He reaches down between them and Ken whispers _Yes_ and Jim strokes him and fucks him and makes him come, driving into him just a little longer, prolonging it until he can't anymore, gasping as he comes too, Ken whispering _yes, yes_ in his ear.

If Miss Lily had any idea what was going on elsewhere in the apartment, she never gives the least sign. She is still sleeping when they emerge, and wakes about a half hour later.

After he has told her that Miss Rose will be home tomorrow, Miss Lily says, "Thank you for letting me stay here today, James. This is a much happier place than it used to be. A good place to rest."

"You're welcome, Miss Lily." He does know what she means. It's not just the absence of his father, but the presence of something else. It's _better_ here now.

In the end, she insists on going back to her own apartment after sharing their supper, though Jim goes along to help feed the birds and the cat. When she is in her bathroom, and the cat is in the kitchen, he feels a throb of deja vu, _alone with the birds_. He had a dream like this... He's had a lot of dreams. The birds still need to eat, and he feeds them.

Once she has bid him goodnight, Jim goes back upstairs to the apartment, and to Ken. Ken has been having a go at washing up the dinner dishes, and he smiles at Jim when he comes into the kitchen.

"There's something I have to tell you," Jim says, because it is time now to confess. He hopes Ken will understand. They have never, of course, had any sort of talk about this kind of thing. Not until now. "Last night... Tony was here, and we were drinking, and, um..."

Ken, who has paused in the act of drying his hands on a dishtowel, looks at him with his eyebrows raised.

"We kissed," Jim says, in a rush. "I'd _like_ to say he kissed me, but... I allowed it. And then I felt terrible. And then he left. I'm really sorry. I'm... I'm the one who invited him over. I know he likes me. I don't even know what I was thinking. I just... You were gone again and... I _am_ sorry."

"It's all right," Ken says, but he turns away.

 _Oh God_. Was this a mistake? Was it a mistake to tell the truth?

"It won't happen again," Jim says humbly.

"I know," Ken says, putting down the dishtowel. "Don't worry." But his gaze is turned inward.

Jim waits silently, unmoving, resisting the urge to apologize again. He _knows_ to wait, that Ken _will_ speak.

It takes a long time. But finally Ken says, "He was _faking_ it."

 _What?_ But he doesn't need to say it.

"I thought Joe was... cheating... on me. Toward the end."  
 _  
So this is the nerve I touched._

"And not even bothering to hide it. Like he was punishing me. But now... now I think about it... now I know... he was sick, and getting sicker, and he knew it. He was hiding from me." His voice shakes with things he's holding back. Jim can hear it. _Secrets never to be told_. "Faking it. Because of course I'd be too proud to go chasing after him."

Jim holds his breath.

Ken shakes his head. His brows are drawn down as though he is angry, but there are tears in his eyes. "I was so _stupid_."

Still Jim says nothing. There is nothing in the world he can offer here except his silence. Joe was sick? Hiding it from Ken? Jim never has known how Joe died, and he never will be able to ask. In fact, this is the first thing Ken has told him about Joe since _He's dead._

And he's the first thing Ken can think of, when Jim tells him he kissed another man.


End file.
